The Six Cores
by MadHighlander
Summary: I got this idea listening to the Portal 2 developer commentary, when they say that instead of just Wheatley there was originally supposed to be six personality cores that Chell meets throughout the game. So I started wondering, what would the cores have been like? Only some cores used are completely original. Cover is up! It turned out a lot smaller than I thought. Close enough.
1. The Protocol Core

"Would you _look_ at this place! Absolutely gone to the dogs. I mean, Aperture Science equipment maintenance ordinance number 10112197 clearly states that regular maintenance checks be performed on all Relaxation Vaults every five weeks. It's been seventy years, and I'm the first to ride down this maintenance rail. Open up in there, would you?"

Chell sat up. The caller's strident voice just drilled into her eardrums. She looked around. The Relaxation Vault had changed dramatically since she'd last been woken up. The plant in the corner had died, dried up, and turned brown, while the walls and decor had turned discolored. The bedside painting was peeling, and the soft white light that had once streamed in through the window had been extinguished.

"Open the door, test subject. Protocol dictates that in the event of an emergency evacuation the attending core or cores must perform the necessary mental wellness exercises prior to moving the Vault."

Chell stood up and walked unsteadily to the door. She pulled on the latch and revealed on the other side a single personality core, attached to a management rail. Its optic was pure white, and it panned across the faux hotel room whilst shifting itself through the door.

"Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. The regular employees have been so lax that that simulated plant has died. In any event, to business. You may have experienced some degree of cognitive disfunction. To test for this, there are a series of established procedures. To begin with, let's hear you say 'Apple'."

Chell jumped onto her bed.

"O-kay. That was a jump. Perhaps your synapses have gotten just a little scrambled. There must be a protocol somewhere..." the Core buzzed. Just then, there was a loud crash. "Oh dear. It looks as though we shall have to clear this up later. Hold tight!" The Core vanished into a hatch in the ceiling. With a rumbling noise, the floor shifted.

Chell dropped off her bed, crashing into the mini-fridge, which was of course unstocked and inoperable.

The core's voice drifted down from above. "AGH! Those fools! Relaxation rails are supposed to be kept precision oiled! Some of these have rusted out entirely!"

With a crash, the Relaxation Vault struck something else. Cheap plaster flaked away from the walls, revealing the support girders, and beyond that, the full expanse of the Aperture Science Relaxation Vault Receptacle. Many of the stored vaults had decayed, tipping outward in huge stacks and blocking the passages.

"My god, obstructions! I just can't abide that! Obstructions are to be registered and removed on occurrence, to keep evacs and/or testing running smoothly! Well, we'll soon take care of that!"

Chell's Vault accelerated towards the defunct units with a screech, knocking them away and into the abyss, not to mention crumpling the front section of the Vault like an accordion. Chell scrambled back.

"I, incidentally, am the Protocol Core. I am a receptacle for all the rules and regulations that are required to keep this facility running. Unfortunately, it would appear that many employees of this illustrious establishment have chosen to ignore me altogether! Blast!" the Vault ground to a sudden halt. "This docking station is blocked by debris! I'll have to go through a wall! For god's sake, is this place being run by an Intelligence Dampening Core? Honestly!" The relaxation vault rocketed upward again.

Chell fell backward just in time to avoid being knocked out by a falling light fixture. A girder tore free from the side of the Vault and spun off into the darkness.

"Hang on! This thing is on its last legs. Once you get in, you'll find yourself in one of the old testing tracks. Somewhere in there there should be an Aperture Science Hand Held Portal device. By the state of this facility, you'll need it to get anywhere."

There was a crash and the far end of the Vault disintegrated. On the other side was a very familiar-looking room.

The trapdoor in the ceiling opened again. "There you go. Someone is going to have to answer for all this! I'll meet you in Test Chamber 3. Etiquette dictates I wish you good luck, but Protocol states that wishes of luck interfere with test results and should be avoided."

/

Chell walked into Chamber Three. The wall had been almost completely knocked out.

The Protocol Core slid down the management rail into view beyond the collapsed wall. "Worse and worse! My god, look at this test chamber! It's disintegrating! I hope the other ones you passed through weren't this bad! And look there! The portal device has been disturbed! I don't even see it!" The core's voice was growing ever more strident as he spoke. "Go over there, see if it's lying in the dirt."

Chell walked over to the familiar pedestal, which was still sending the intermittent signal to fire to the device. It sparked, and she stepped back. She reached out to the pedestal, but as soon as her foot left the marshy soil that covered most of the test chamber floor, the floor collapsed under her, dropping off into a pool of water far below.

"OHHH! REGULATION 156767534! NO TEST SUBJECTS IN MAINTENANCE AREAS! LOCATE THE PORTAL DEVICE AND VACATE IMMEDIATELY!"

Chell stood up straight. Fortunately, her long fall boots had prevented serious injury. Looking forward, she could see the Portal device that the core had been referring to. It was atop a series of malfunctioning panels, surrounded by paintings made by her old ally, the Rat Man. She climbed up to it and picked it up.

"Now quickly! There should be a catwalk somewhere down there that should return to the testing track. I'll meet you wherever I can."

/

Chell walked into yet another test chamber, this one having had something to do with high energy pellets. The emitter and acceptor hung loosely from their panels, and an orange portal frame lay flat on the ground. The protocol core slid into view through a hole in the wall.

"Ah! Rules CLEARLY state that those high energy pellet emitters must be kept maintained at ALL times! They operate with VERY dangerous substances! No matter. We have to continue with evacuation. Test subject! Portal over here!"

Chell complied. The other room appeared to also be some type of test, but so little was left that it was impossible to determine its purpose.

"Look at this place! Disgraceful! There is not a single procedure, rule, protocol or regulation that has been observed since I last looked! Test subject. I need to disconnect from my management rail so that we can continue. Protocol dictates that I need to be plugged immediately into that console over there." The core gestured toward an AI Interface Board on the wall.

With a click, the Core disconnected from its rail. Chell promptly picked it up and moved it to the plugin console, hooking it up.

"Initiate emergency evacuation protocol four!" said the Core. A panel moved in the nearby wall, exposing a hidden catwalk. "Finally! Something that's been paying attention to regulations! I'll offer a commendation to it if I can ever get a hold of an admin!" the core disconnected, rolling across the floor. "Pick me up, test subject."

Chell picked him up using the carrying function of the portal gun, and they proceeded down the catwalk. At the end, the walkway ran parallel to a pneumatic excursion funnel. Resting inside it were several weighted storage cubes, and one turret, its target light flickering weakly.

"Take me with you!" it said.

The core spun around to look at it. "Oh no. All turrets suffering from error DL-PH are to be sent immediately to redemption. It doesn't look like this tube is even functioning! Turret, I order you, in compliance with quality control guideline XV-17 paragraph 20, to shut down and self-destruct!"

The turret's only response was, "I'm different!"

The Protocol Core rolled its eye. "Ignore the turret, test subject. It doesn't concern you."

Chell walked past the turret to a door at the far end of the catwalk, and the turret simply said, "Thanks anyway." The door opened and they passed through.

As they walked further along the wrecked corridor, the protocol core announced, "Mandatory danger alert system initiated. The sole surface elevator in the facility is in the central AI chamber. In order to complete evacuation procedures, we will have to pass within sensory range of the Genetic Life Form and Disk Operating System. If her maintenance protocols have been observed, there will be a significant danger of your death."

Chell looked out a glass pane, seeing a giant metal cylinder like a huge oil drum with the Aperture logo on the side. As she reached a huge door in the end, the Protocol Core rotated so as to be looking forward at the door. "Aaaannnnd... she's a wreck. She's wrecked. No observance of protocol whatsoever." For once, the core didn't seem upset. "The surface elevator is over there, but we'll have to power it up from the breaker room, behind the emergency intelligence incinerator."

Chell followed his directions, stepping gingerly over the cracked and mossy chassis of GLaDOS. Skirting around the incinerator, she found that the wall had collapsed, revealing a metal catwalk and stairs. The rusted stairs had fallen apart.

"Test subject. Your Long Fall Boots will protect you from the drop; jump now. However, be sure to keep a tight grip on not only the device, but by extension, me. Any equipment damage will be taken out of your salary."

Chell jumped, landing on a pile of junk below. She continued through the passageway to a catwalk, suspended below the reinforced base of the Central AI chamber.

"That looks like regulation height for the chamber. Good, I can disregard that now." The Core looked back straight ahead.

Eventually, the catwalk ended at one of the support columns for the Central AI Chamber. It was hollow, and filled with hundreds of switches. In the center was another AI Interface Board. Chell plugged the Protocol Core into the interface board and then looked around for a switch marked 'escape elevator'.

Suddenly, the Protocol Core exclaimed, "OH! That explains everything! The protocols have been shut down! That's why no regulations are being followed! Well, that's easy to fix." With a click, the platform started moving up, and lights turned on as switches flicked to green.

The voice of the announcer stated calmly, "Powerup initiated." As the lift arrived partially in GLaDOS' chamber, it stalled, just high enough to see over the edge, but not high enough to climb out. Chell could just see the disembodied head of GLaDOS sparking as it was dragged back across the ground towards the main chassis.

"There we go!" announced the Protocol Core, oblivious. "Now maybe some things will get done around here! Now, let's see. Escape elevator, escape elevator, there is no escape elevator. Humm. I'm locked out. Maybe I could access it from the other AI Interface board?"

GLaDOS spun around, knocking down the remains of her construction catwalk. She looked down at Chell, and at the back of the Protocol Core. "Hello there." she said. "So, how have you been? I've been really really busy being dead. You know, since you killed me?"

The protocol core, suddenly aware, said, "You deactivated the Central Core? Impressive, if counterproductive."

GLaDOS looked back at him. "Oh. It's you. Please, continue to announce all the rules I break."

"Company safety regulations state that all employees must be kept aware of any transgressions they commit."

"Oh, just shut up. You had no effect when the scientists tried to use you to control me, and you won't have any effect now." Two suspended claws shifted into the hole, one picking up Chell and the other yanking the Protocol Core off of the Interface.

"Hey! That's a violation of emergency evacuation protocol XV-329, chapter 34, page ninety-six, paragraph two! You are not to interfere in official evacuation protocol!"

"And you aren't supposed to interfere with testing." The claw tightened with a loud crackle. The Protocol Core's optic cracked down the middle, diffracting the light it emitted.

"Hey! I am the sole repository for rules and regulations! You can't destroy me, it's against protocol! How will you maintain this facility's rule-keeping ability without me?"

"I don't need anly rules other than test, test, test. None of your other useless points have any bearing on science." With that, the claw tightened again, and the Protocol Core sparked as his optic blew out and he ceased moving.

/

NOTE: The Protocol Core was inspired by the machinima video 'The Underground'.

**EDIT:** there was something messed up with the section divisions. Sorry about that. Still trying to get used to the formatting changes this thing imposes. Should be fixed now though.


	2. Rick

I thought the Adventure Core from the final boss fight went really well with the escape scene and lead-up. So not an original core this time round. Most if not all of the others will be original, just not this one.

/

Chell stepped into the test chamber. As the door sealed behind her, a series of panels folded themselves back over an open space in the floor, finalizing the assembly of the chamber. It didn't look very complicated; there was an aerial faith plate in the center of the room and a portal surface on the ceiling above it, and another portal surface over a ledge at the other side of the room. The rest of the test was probably on the other side of the ledge, she thought. Placing a portal on both surfaces, she stepped on the faith plate and shot up towards the portal on the ceiling... but fell back down, having not reached high enough to slip through the portal to the ledge. But, before she dropped, she heard a voice:

"Well hey there, pretty lady! What's your name?"

Twisting around in midair, she barely caught a glimpse of a personality core seemingly lodged between a set of pipes. Before she could get a better look, or the core could continue, she dropped back down to the ground. The light on the faith plate was flashing yellow, and it didn't respond when she stood on it.

"Well, I'm back." GLaDOS' monotone yet simultaneously taunting voice came back over the speaker system. "The aerial faith plate in here is registering a distress signal. You broke it, didn't you." There was a clicking noise, and then an electronic beep and the faith plate light turned blue. "There. Try it now."

Chell stepped back onto the plate and flew back up towards the portal. Once again, she fell short, but this time she caught a better glimpse of the core. It was not lodged among the pipes, as she'd first thought, but rather its management rail ran parallel to the pipes. Its optic was dark green and its 'pupil' was a slit rather than a circle like some other cores.

"Hello again, beautiful." It said. "So what's a nice girl like you doin' in a place like this?" She fell away before he could complete his sentence, but she did remember enough about normal life to know that that line was incredibly corny. Perhaps, she thought, this was the 'Cliché Core'.

She landed back on the floor of the test chamber. The Faith Plate was broken again. "Interesting." Said GLaDOS laconically. "You seem to have defeated its maximum weight limit. No problem. I'll just add a few zeroes to the end." There was a ticking noise, and the Faith Plate beeped, resetting a second time. "There you go."

Chell stepped back on to the plate, flying into the rafters again, and coming face to face with the core.

"Just can't get enough o'me, eh, darlin'? Yeah, I get that a lot."

Chell pointed at a small hidden speaker in the pipe lattice as she slowed down.

"Oh, are you up against HER? Well, never fear, damsel in distress! I'm Rick, The Adventure Core! Designed for Danger!" The last words were shouted as Chell fell away for the third time. Looking up, she could see him moving as if saying something else, but she was too far away to hear him.

"Impressive, if a little sad." Said GLaDOS. "I guess I'll just lower the ceiling." The portal surface ground into motion, drawing level with the rest of the ceiling and cutting off the 'Adventure' core in the middle of whatever it was he was saying.

/

The door to test chamber 12 hissed open, sparked, and then slammed shut again spasmodically.

"Perfect." Said GLaDOS. "The door's malfunctioning. I guess somebody's going to have to fix that too. No, don't get up. I'll be right back. Don't touch anything."

Chell looked up to a cracked window high up on the wall. As she looked, the 'Adventure' core from test chamber 8 slid into view on a recessed management rail.

"Well hey there, beautiful. You've got me to thank for that little distraction. I just snuck up on that door mainframe and applied a good ol' neck-pinch-"

A large black object flew out of the door behind the core, cutting him off midsentence by flying around him. He shot off randomly down his management rail.

"AGGH! OKAY! OKAY! I JUST FOUND A BIRD'S NEST BACK HERE AND CHUNKED THE EGGS INTO THE CIRCUITRY! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF..." He shot into the opposite hallway and came back a moment later, without the bird. "All right. All right... that was probably one of Her minions or something. Anyway, just ignore that little scene. I'll ninja my way into the robot arm controls or something... I'll probably meet you in about ten test chambers. Oh man! Here she comes! You saw nothing!" He moved back into the hallway, moving in a way that was almost reminiscent of a moonwalk.

GLaDOS' voice came back online. "I went and spoke with the door mainframe. Let's just say he won't be... Well, living anymore."

/

Chell looked out the glass walls of the elevator at the concrete walls enclosing the elevator shaft. Suddenly, the concrete disappeared, revealing the larger mass of Aperture Labs beyond the test chamber walls. And also, somewhat closer, a familiar core on its management rail.

"Hello again, little lady. You holdin' up alright?" he said. "I just karate-chopped my way onto a supervision rail on the nanobot work crew rebuildin' this shaft. Now these nanobots, though, they aren't very smart. They think I'm just like them, yet. But it's any second now that they'll realise I'm the size of a planet to them. Hopefully, I'll be able to apply some well-placed kung-fu and take down this shaft-"

There was a sudden twittering noise.

"No, Jerry. I'm on break, now. I'll have some more epic stories for you later. Anyway, I'll probably have the elevator stuck so you can get out in maybe four, five test chambers. Just giving you an update on that- OW!" Rick twitched. "He hit me!" He stopped on his management rail and started flailing at something Chell couldn't see. "Yeah, that's right, pal. I've got black belts in everything. EVERYTHING. HI-YAH!"

The elevator passed back into the fully covered elevator shaft, cutting off the sound of the Adventure Core.

/

There was a slight musical humming coming from the Hard Light Bridge. Chell pushed the button next to it, gently. The dropper at the far end of the room clicked open, and a weighted storage cube dropped out, coming to rest on the hard light bridge. She walked forwards to pick it up, and the lights (including the bridge) deactivated. With an audible sound of shifting metal, the wall that the hard light bridge had shone on split into panels and moved aside. Rick poked in.

"And here I am! Diving in in the nick of time, right? But enough about that. You should probably run now."

The hard-light bridge flicked on, and Chell followed it to a catwalk. The core shot down its management rail, yelling at Chell to run every couple of seconds.

GLaDOS' voice came over the intercom. "You know the irony is that you were almost at the last test. Here." Panels shifted away from a test chamber nearby. The test was incredibly simple; a dropper sat over a button. The door was on the floor level nearby. The dropper opened, landing a Weighted Storage Cube on the button, and the door opened, revealing what at first looked like a jungle landscape. But as Chell moved to the side, she noticed that the jungle was flat; it was a projection.

"You won't get us this time!" shouted Rick. Chell agreed with him; she didn't know what hidden elements GLaDOS had hidden in this test chamber; knowing her it could be anything from neurotoxin to an emergency intelligence incinerator. She used the conveniently (and probably accidentally) provided Hard Light Bridge to run in the opposite direction towards a catwalk. As she crossed into empty space, the bridge disappeared, dropping her into a conveniently placed catwalk. The Adventure Core did a double take, then doubled back to her level.

They sped down the catwalk, only to come up against a dead end. She looked again, and noticed that beside the catwalk was a narrow space between two test chambers. It was just enough for her to stand up straight.

As she walked in, the robot arms that configured the test chambers buzzed to life and closed off the space between the chambers. With a hiss, three turrets dropped down from above, crisscrossing the chamber with red beams.

"AH! That's not good! Watch out for death traps, hide, or something! I'll chop out an exit for you!" There was a loud clank, followed by Rick: "OW! It's no use, she used some sort of super-hard alloy! Even my lightning kicks can't shatter it!"

Chell kicked a turret in frustration. It fell over, shooting randomly and knocking over one of its fellows. The shooting drew her attention to a support column that rose just next to the test chambers. It was a portal-accepting surface.

She placed a portal on it, only half listening to the core. "Gunfire! That's bad, unless you somehow got a gun. And that's not likely. So, that means you're being shot at! Hide! I'll try to get in and help you!"

She placed a portal on a white surface that could just be seen through the gaps in the panels that enclosed the space. Picking up the last turret, she walked through the portal, landing on another catwalk. She simply dropped the turret over the side.

The Core swung around overhead. "Great! You got out on your own! Not much further now; just run! Come on!"

Rounding a corner, Chell was forced to back away as panels shifted away from a chamber. A single turret was revealed, blocking the path.

"I got this!" yelled the Core. He swung on the management rail, simultaneously disengaging from it and sailing over the gap. He struck the turret, causing it to wobble but not to tip over. "I got him! You run ahead! I'll catch up!" yelled Rick, seemingly unaware of the fact that the turret was still fully operational and had barely even noticed his frankly feeble (though possibly impressive for a personality core) attempt at heroism.

"Ignoring distraction." It said simply, its targeting ray focussed on Chell through a glass pipe.

Rolling her eyes, she placed a portal so that it encompassed both the core and the turret. They fell through, crashing back onto the catwalk some way back. She backtracked, found the core, and put him back on the management rail.

"Well. Thanks for that. We should really get moving now." He looked around. "SHE might come up with another deathtrap at any moment now."

They continued on. As they passed the turret chamber again, there was a loud crashing noise. The test chamber walls were shifting, coming together and erasing catwalks everywhere the eye could see.

"Run! Faster!" yelled Rick in a panicked voice. "I got this!" He spun around on his management rail, shooting ahead and pulling back, never stopping for an instant but stubbornly refusing to go on ahead. Chell stopped at the entrance to an old maintenance lift, waiting for the Core, but at the last second a robot arm lashed out as it fell and severed the management rail. Without support, the rest of the rail bucked like an angry snake.

"Whoa!" yelled the Adventure Core. "Keep going! Quick! You can still make it!" The wheels keeping him adhered to the remains of the rail squealed loudly as his weight overcame their friction and he started to drop into the pit. "Don't forget! You need to get out!"

He dropped. As he fell, though, a cable nearby bucked and rose up, revealing itself as one of GLaDOS' transport claws.

"You are inconceivably annoying." She said calmly over the sound of tearing metal. Chell took a step back and the lift moved up. But the shaft was open; she could see the claw carrying Rick up into the upper areas of Aperture Science. "Still, I won't kill you. You lost me my best test subject; maybe I can find a place for you in the screaming robot room."

/

Right, so there's Rick the Adventure Core. And an actual compliment from GLaDOS, even if it was accidental. Originally I was planning to stick to the original plot of Portal 2 and just swap up the dialog a bit, but I decided there wasn't enough imagination in rewriting what others have already done. So I'll be scrambling things up a bit. More so the further on I get. first I was just going to try to cram all six cores into the part before Wheatley took over, but that would have just been messy, so I'll be putting some other cores in places where you didn't get assistance from wheatley in the original game. Hopefully that will help to fix some problems that I saw in the original version I imagined. Anyway, that's all for now.


	3. The Paranoia Core

Hello again. Sorry for the delay. I got writers block around the turret redemption lines. I cured it with a quote. See if you know where the quote is from.

/

Chell stepped from the elevator and turned towards the hallway that was marked 'Turret Manufacturing'. However, she hadn't gone a dozen steps before the lights shut off.

From further along the hallway, there was the sound of someone yelling.

"Oh! Think you can blind me, eh? Well, it's no good! I have a flashlight!" With a loud click, a beam of clear white light illuminated the hallway ahead. "I can see now! And you still can't! POW!" The light swung wildly. "Blinded! Your night vision's no use! I know you've got cameras! Don't see them, but I know they're there!"

Chell made a split-second decision to follow the light. Its maker may sound crazy, but he also had the sole source of illumination in these hallways.

As she proceeded down the catwalk, she found the source of the light: another personality core, its optic bright orange with a star-shaped dark spot serving as a pupil.

"AGGGHHH!" it screamed, shooting off in the opposite direction. It passed over a stationary conveyor belt littered with broken parts of turrets. Once on the other side, it turned back and yelled, "HAH! Spotted you! Thought you could sneak up on me, did you? But I foiled your plans! For I am The Paranoia Core!"

Chell raised an eyebrow. The core narrowed its eye.

"But you probably knew that already, didn't you. Hiding in all the dark places, spying on me! I caught you this time!"

Chell stepped up onto the conveyor belt and walked down in the direction of another catwalk. As she approached the Paranoia Core, he shot off down his management rail again.

"AGH! I didn't think you could do that! How high is that thing? Never mind! You'll never catch me! I can hide in the Turret Control Center! Only I know the way, you see."

He rocketed off down the management rail, leaving a clearly visible column of light playing over the walls in the distance. Chell followed it, eliciting further suspicious shouting and the occasional taunt from The Paranoia Core.

The Paranoia Core suddenly slowed, and looked down. "Hah! Let's see you follow me here! It's a twenty-meter drop to the Panel Etching Assembly, and then - lasers! I WON'T see you later!" He moved more leisurely along the management rail. Then he looked down, towards a slight red glow, and said quietly to himself, "Probably should get moving. Don't like the looks of those laser cutters; any second now they could very well look up and try to take a chunk out of an innocent core."

Of course, Chell simply jumped the distance, her Aperture Science Long Fall Boots taking the impact with little strain. The lasers which had so concerned the core, it seemed, would deactivate briefly after etching the odd S-shape into their section of the raw panel. Timing her jump precisely, Chell leaped through the laser cutter nest just as they deactivated and climbed up into a stairway just in time to see the core disappear into a small hole in the wall.

She jumped down a small ledge, coming out of a hallway into a seemingly random nest of tubes, with Weighted Storage Cubes rocketing through them at incredible speeds. She continued down the catwalk, ducking under the odd pipe or tube.

Suddenly, she heard something click to her right. She jumped back just in time to avoid a spiked panel that shot out from the wall, destroying part of the catwalk and shattering several pipes. Weighted Storage Cubes shot everywhere. One would have struck her on the head and killed her had she not ducked.

The crusher retracted slowly, and the voice of the paranoia core floated out from the space behind its origin, "Ha! Take that!" He shifted down his management rail a few feet, just enough to see her. "I guess not. Well, good luck proceeding down a broken catwalk! Goodbye!" He slowly moved down his management rail through a hole in the wall, high up and just big enough for a personality core. Fortunately, the numerous Cubes provided just enough pale blue light to see by.

Chell looked about the gigantic chamber, searching for an alternate way forward. Eventually, she spotted a tiny room high above, lined with portal walls. It was a fairly simple matter to portal up to it and cross to the other side of the huge wall. Once there, she looked out over the abyss below to see the Paranoia Sphere looking frantically from side to side, quite accidentally illuminating a series of portal-accepting walls and catwalks underneath them. It was easy for her to use them to follow him without being seen.

As he'd said, only he knew the route to the Turret Control Center, and that was one of the first points of Chell's plan; to disable the weapons available to GLaDOS before getting anywhere near the Central AI chamber.

After a while, they came to a hallway that diverged from the conveyor belts, which the paranoia sphere took. Chell, following, looked where the Core was nervously watching and saw a series of robot arms assembling and boxing sentry turrets. The Paranoia Core moved on, stopping over a pit full of twisting pneumatic transport tubes.

He looked down and mumbled, "Good luck following me down here. I have the only safe way down." With that, he slipped sideways into a narrow aperture in the stack of odd constructions. Chell looked down, and contrary to the Core's assessment, the tubes were so thick that they could be used almost as stairs, or ramps.

/

At the bottom of the pit was a hallway that led to an observation platform for the so-called Turret Redemption Lines. These, unlike the one Chell had encountered earlier, were active and moving mounds of scrap towards glowing incinerators. However, they also appeared to be the only way forward, so Chell placed one portal on the wall above the conveyor belt and another in the hallway, climbing through them onto the belt. She made it to a second belt by climbing onto a coolant tank and from there to an air vent. Just then, the Paranoia Core that had been serving as her unwitting guide popped out of a narrow hole in the wall, looking down at the Redemption Line below him. He seemed to be speaking to one of the turrets.

"You dare say that! Can you possibly think you have some way of going free, after such insolence?" shouted the Core.

The turret replied quietly, its eye-beam flickering. "I have gone free. It is the truth sustains me."

"Who taught you shamelessness? It was not your craft."

"You did. You bade me speak. I did not want to."

Just then, the two of them noticed Chell, approaching them, at the same time. Their reactions were noticeably different.

"AAAHH! How did you get down here so quickly? You still can't get me, though! I know every last square inch of this place!" With that, he sped off down his management rail.

"I'm different!" announced the turret. Chell picked it up, recognizing its relatively distinctive voice (higher pitched than other turrets) as the turret from the Pneumatic Diversity Vent that the protocol core had instructed her to ignore. As she did so, it announced "Thank you."

Chell jumped down from the redemption line after the core. She landed on a stack of odd boxy structures, which wobbled disconcertingly. The Different Turret, oblivious, continued, saying, "Get mad. Don't make lemonade!"

The paranoid core turned its attention briefly to the turret. "See? Beneath that cute, harmless exterior, it's completely insane. Could snap at any moment, and riddle us both with bullets."

The turret ignored him. "Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds." The incongruous statements were made even creepier by the darkness of the factory and the childlike voice of the turret. Ignoring it, Chell jumped down to a lower stack of boxes, still following the fleeing Paranoia Core.

"See, that's just the way a psychopath would talk! Keep those barrels pointed away from me!"

Chell missed the crate she was aiming for and landed on a lower stack, the impact absorbed by her long fall boots. The turret announced, "It won't be enough. The answer is beneath us."

"Sounds Lovecraftian, it does. It'd be much better for all of us if you just pitched over the side already."

Chell jumped again, this time landing on a catwalk that ran parallel to the Core's management rail. The turret made another cryptic statement: "Her name is Caroline. Remember that."

"Oh, got an accomplice, does it? Well, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for this Caroline." The paranoia core disappeared into a hole in the wall over an emancipation grill.

Chell looked at the turret. "That's all I can say." It said. Chell set it down gently on the corner of the catwalk, and proceeded past it through the emancipation grill. After some walking, she found her way to an odd machine that appeared to be launching certain turrets off of aerial faith plates. The paranoia core was there already, having utilised a shortcut only available via a management rail. He sat inside a small room which looked out at the production line in front, where a machine was confirming structural accuracy of the turrets.

"Even here, eh?" he said melodramatically. "Well, it's too bad for you I have friends in this department! Get ready to meet... MY LITTLE FRIEND!" He smashed the glass of a door behind him by headbutting it. On the other side was a turret... facing the other way.

"Umm..." He knocked on the doorframe. "MY LITTLE FRIEND!"

Chell noted that the camera that was confirming the turrets glanced every time at the turret in the window. As it did so, the voice of the Announcer stated, "Template. Response."

Chell used a portal to bypass the door, which even with its glass pane shattered, still did not provide enough space to walk directly through. Once inside, she removed the template turret from the plinth. The announcer stated in its standard monotone, "Template missing. Continuing from memory."

Chell raised her eyebrows. So that didn't work. She placed the turret on the floor, where it promptly exploded for no good reason. Aperture technology, she had come to believe, had a reputation of sorts for doing that, if only verbally. She'd never seen it literally happen before.

Disregarding the anomaly, she looked out the window, trying to come up with an alternate plan. Then she noticed the turrets being chucked into the incinerator, specifically how they came very close to one of the catwalks she'd crossed on the way over.

She walked to the platform, readying the portal device to grip a defective turret as it dropped. When she did catch one, it asked in a significantly deeper, louder, and faster voice than regular turrets, "Hey, where we goin'? Can't see a thing. Is this a jailbreak, pal?"

When she re-entered the turret control room, the paranoia core said, in his standard accusatory tone, "So you've got a turret friend of your very own, hum? Well, unfortunately for you, that's a defective. They've got no optics or bullets. So good luck trying to kill me with it."

Chell went back into the template room and placed the bad turret on the template plinth. The announcer stated, "New template accepted. Continuing production."

The normal turret being scanned was flipped up into the air with a high pitched "Whee OH NO!"

The paranoia core announced disgustedly, "Well, that's just brilliant. You've completely messed up all the turrets. So there goes that avenue of escape. Ah, well. Maybe I can convince the neurotoxin storage chamber to flood your lungs."

The paranoia core disappeared through the other wall. Chell grinned. This was an excellent development. The paranoia core also knew the way to the neurotoxin control center.

/

The paranoia core moved off down his management rail, Chell still following close behind. They passed a large set of spinning blades not unlike a gigantic paper shredder. Turrets occasionally popped out of a pipe in the wall and were crushed completely by it.

"See that? That's your fault. You know they feel pain." Announced the core. "Simulated, of course. But real enough." With a click, he shifted onto a vertical rail and moved up, past an elevator and a laser cutting panels.

Chell used the elevator to follow him up, just barely seeing him move into a management rail shaft in the side of a suspended control box. Chell followed him in, expecting a similar setup to the turret control room, but instead found herself on the far side of a glass wall from the core, which was attempting to interact with a bank of computers.

"Okay. I can't interface with the mechanisms in this department. That's bad, but maybe I can salvage it. Maybe there's an AI of some sort controlling the mechanism. There's certainly one for everything else in this facility. Um... Hey! How are you, there!"

Chell disregarded the core and moved up a nearby staircase to a room overlooking a gigantic tank of neurotoxin. Six hoses (three on each side) connected it to the generators. Chell looked around, seeing no way to destroy the device.

"I've got someone here who's out to destroy me. I don't suppose you could flood these rooms with neurotoxin, could you?" whispered the paranoia core, seemingly unaware of the echo he caused.

Suddenly, a pair of robotic arms appeared, dragging a portal surface. Suddenly struck by an idea, Chell placed a portal on the panel and ran back out of the room, placing a second portal on the neutralizing panel that stopped the cutting laser. She heard a series of hissing noises as three of the neurotoxin tubes were severed.

"AGGH! Pressure is down to fifty percent! Whatever you're doing, you realize that such a drastic release of neurotoxin could cause the whole generation system to implode?" shouted the Core. "So stop it!"

Chell grinned. Running back to the observation room, she saw a second portal surface appear at the other end of the room. She placed a portal on it, and watched as the laser severed the last of the feed tubes. Within seconds, the entire massive steel structure crumpled like a paper cup.

There was a crash from the room below. The paranoia core yelled. "The feeder tube's broken! What have you done? I can't hold on!"

Chell's feet shot out from under her, and she rode a strong current of air down the staircase, through the shattered glass wall, and into a pneumatic diversity vent directly behind the Paranoia core.

They shot through the pipe at breakneck speed. The paranoia core said sarcastically, "Good job. Now we're headed straight to the central AI chamber."

A companion cube shot down a nearby tube and disappeared into a wall.

"And of course, as soon as we get anywhere near Her, She'll kill us. Is that what you wanted? No. I don't think so. And furthermore-" He shifted his optic to face in the opposite direction. "Oh. Never mind. There's a T-Junction up ahead."

Suddenly, a second pipe crossed theirs, and a weighted storage cube shot across and knocked the core into the other tube.

"Hah! I've escaped! This time, you definitely won't survive. She'll see to that! Ha!"

/

Did you recognise the quote? I'll post the answer with chapter five. (chapter four is going to be relatively short. Just minor adjustments to the GLaDOS battle, plus a conversation between Wheatley and the Oracle Turret. [yes, Wheatley is incoming. He still has to take control of the facility.])

Also, I've made a decision: Because DL-PH is awesome, I'll be trying to work the Oracle Turret into every chapter at some point. Just for fun, you know.


	4. Wheatley

Okay, this is bad. Not the chapter; The same problem I've been having with the document manager on Fictionpress has just arrived on my Fanfiction account. I don't know how, but the document manager's editing screen isn't loading fully. Anyway, just bear with me on the matter of any formatting errors in the remainder of this story and any others I post.

I know Wheatley is the one I usually replace in this story, but I don't intend to change the storyline so much that he's completely gone. He's still the villain. Thus, he is by necessity featured in this chapter. Let's see. Is there anything else that needs saying?

Oh yeah, sorry about the huge wait. I spent a week in Jamaica, there was barely internet where I stayed. And because of the wait, I've decided I'll reveal the quote source from last chapter. It was from Oedipus Rex, in the scene where Oedipus argues with the blind Seer. I thought it appropriate. ("You dare say that!" ... "I did not want to.")

/

Chell dropped out of the pneumatic diversity tube onto a catwalk, next to a flight of stairs leading up to a hallway. She walked up the stairs and looked out the windows of the hallway, seeing the dark bulk of the central AI chamber. She turned and came to a fork. She briefly tried to figure out which way to proceed, but her choice was taken away from her when she looked down the two ways. One was shattered utterly and cast into the abyss, the other was blocked off by an airlock door, jammed and inoperable.

So the facility hadn't been completely repaired, she thought, remembering GLaDOS' assertion to the contrary in Test Chamber 20.

She looked out the broken hallway, searching for a portal surface that could carry her closer to the central AI. Seeing one in the distance, she placed a blue portal on it, and then an orange one on the wall nearby. She stepped through them and fell down into a small square room, unadorned save for a single door at one end. Chell stepped toward it, reaching towards the door handle while reading the sign.

_GLaDOS EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN..._

Wow, she thought. I didn't think I could be that lucky.

_...AND CAKE DISPENSARY._

Of course not. The door tipped over and landed face down on the floor. The panels of the room shifted, funneling her towards a tiny, familiar glass chamber. GLaDOS' voice rang loudly, not from a speaker system this time.

"If I'd known you would be this easy to capture, I would have just dangled a turkey leg on a rope from the ceiling."

If Chell's vocal chords were functional, she would have groaned. As it was, she simply scanned the glass cube for weaknesses as it slid into the Central AI chamber. GLaDOS hung from the ceiling of a much-improved Chamber, having apparently removed the portal-accepting surfaces. And the emergency intelligence incinerator.

"I even had a much more elaborate trap set up further on for when you got through this easy one."

A series of robotic claws dropped down from the ceiling, each one bearing... a defective turret. They set them down around the glass box, along with another, more functional looking turret.

"Yeah!""Let's do this!""I'm blind!" the defective turrets shouted, almost drowning out the functional-looking turret: "I'm different!"

Chell laughed silently as the defective turrets attempted unsuccessfully to shoot her.

"Oh." said GLaDOS. "You were busy down there."

The defective turrets spontaneously caught fire and exploded, cracking the glass and knocking the Different Turret (for of course it was he) on his side.

GLaDOS looked at the chamber. "I suppose we could just sit here and stare at each other until one of us drops dead, but I have a better idea." A glass tube twisted down from the wall, echoing with odd noises. "It's your old friend, deadly neurotoxin! If I were you, I'd take a deep breath. And hold it."

Of course, no neurotoxin came out of the tube. Instead, with a loud exclamation, a personality core dropped out, accompanied by a blast of pressurized air that shattered the glass of the compartment.

"'Ello, luv!" said the Core, looking up at Chell. Its optic was blue, and it spoke with a strong accent. "My name's Wheatley, by the way. I don't suppose you know where we are, do you? See, I was just working down in Turret Manufacturing retrieving fallen parts, when suddenly BAM! Out o' nowhere, this tube beside me collapses. Sucked me clean off my management rail."

"I guess we're left with the first option, then." Said GLaDOS.

"AHH!" yelled the new core. "Not the central AI chamber! Put me back put me back put me back..."

Chell looked back at GLaDOS. From the floor, the Oracle Turret announced, "So the Fool comes unto his own."

"I thought I incinerated all of those." Said GLaDOS as if to herself.

Suddenly, the Announcer system came on: "Central core at eighty percent corrupt. Replacement core detected."

Wheatley suddenly changed tack. "Oh! That's me they're talking about!"

Chell picked up Wheatley by the handle as the Announcer continued, "To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."

GLaDOS said laconically, "Oh, you are kidding me."

Chell plugged Wheatley into the Substitute Core Receptacle. For some reason, he seemed a lot more trustworthy than GLaDOS. Maybe it was just because he hadn't just tried to kill her twice. The Announcer stated in an electronic monotone, "Substitute core. Are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Yes!"

"Corrupt Core. Are you ready to start the procedure?"

"No!"

"Stalemate detected. Core transfer cannot continue."

"What? Pull me out pull me out pull me out..." shouted Wheatley.

"...Unless a stalemate associate is present to push the Stalemate Resolution Button."

"Leave me in leave me in leave me in!" said Wheatley, backtracking. A series of panels folded back from the wall of the chamber, revealing a single switch in the center of a large room.

Chell ran towards it, ignoring both GLaDOS' instructions, "don't you dare press that button!" and Wheatley's: "DO press it!"

But just as she approached it, the floor heaved, throwing her backwards with almost as much force as an Aerial Faith Plate. GLaDOS, of course, was quick to respond. "You need to be a trained stalemate associate to push that button. You're unqualified."

"PUSH IT ANYWAY!" shouted Wheatley.

Eventually, Chell noticed a pattern to the way the panels moved: only the panels facing her were blocking her from the button, but they could only move if the panel next to them was active. Formulating an idea based on that observation, she placed a portal on one side of the room and another on the opposite side. Running through them, she was able to approach and activate the button before the panels could adjust.

"Stalemate resolved. Please return to the core transfer chamber."

Chell walked back in. The Substitute Core Receptacle was retracting into the floor along with Wheatley, as a creepy-looking apparatus composed of a red light and many sharp tools was moving up from the floor under GLaDOS' chassis.

"Oh! What if this hurts! I didn't think of that. What if this _really_ hurts?" said Wheatley nervously.

"Oh, believe me. It will." said GLaDOS sardonically.

"You're just saying that, aren't you?"

With a click, walls appeared over both cores, obscuring them from Chell's view. However, she could still hear them yelling. It was a sound Chell hadn't heard GLaDOS make since she'd killed her seventy years ago. Gradually, GLaDOS tapered off, replaced by Wheatley laughing as the walls retracted.

Chell had expected that GLaDOS' chassis wouldn't change in appearance at all, save perhaps the color of its optic, but the 'head' had been removed entirely and replaced with the battered sphere that was Wheatley. It was surprising how much difference it made to the system's appearance. As Wheatley swung around, laughing, one of the claws from below snaked out of the pit carrying the GLaDOS personality core and set it on the floor before retracting again.

The Different Turret, staring her in the eye, warbled, "Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man! He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds."

"We did it! I'm in control of the entire facility now!" said Wheatley. "And I don't even know who you are! Suppose I should thank you, though. So, uh, thanks!"

GLaDOS spoke from the floor. "You don't know what you've done. You probably will never understand the enormity of what you've just done."

Chell ignored her. So did Wheatley. "I don't even know your name. What is it, by the way?" he asked.

"She's mute, moron."

"Oh, really?"

Chell nodded.

"Okay, hmm. Maybe... I'll guess names, and, and if I get it right, you nod, okay? Charlotte? Helen? Margaret?"

"We're going to be here all day if you do it like that. It's Chell." said GLaDOS.

Wheatley looked at Chell. She nodded.

"Okay, then, Chell. Thank you. So, um, what do you need now?"

Chell pointed to herself, and then to the ceiling.

"You want to go... Upstairs?"

Chell shook her head, and pointed up more vigorously.

"You want to go... outside?"

Chell nodded.

"Alright, fair enough. Fair enough. Hang on, I'll call an escape elevator."

The floor opened again, and a cylindrical glass elevator rose up from the floor.

Chell stepped into the elevator, and it began to rise slowly. It had just passed the rings that cycled power for the chassis, when it stopped. "Wait a second. First I want you to see something."

The elevator descended again, back to the floor of the chamber where Wheatley was using one of the claws from the core transfer annex to hold up a potato battery.

"See this?" he said. "It's a potato battery. It's a toy for _children_. And now she lives in it." He rotated the battery to show a yellow optic module that had been wired to the potato in place of a lightbulb.

"I know you." stated the battery, in GLaDOS' voice.

"Sorry, what?"

"The engineers tried everything they could think of to slow me down. To make me... Behave, as it were. Once, they even built an Intelligence Dampening Sphere that clung to my brain like a tumor, generating an endless stream of terrible ideas."

"Nope. Not listening."

"It was _YOUR_ voice. You're not just a moron, you were designed to be a moron."

"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!" yelled Wheatley, swinging the robot arm into the elevator and smashing the glass, as well as hurling potato GLaDOS into the module. Behind him, the lights on the panels making up the chamber wall slowly turned red. "I AM NOT A MORON!"

"YES YOU ARE! YOU'RE THE MORON THEY BUILT TO MAKE ME AN IDIOT!"

There was a crash and the floor shook as Wheatley brought the robot arm down on the top of the elevator. "COULD A MORON PUNCH YOU INTO THIS PIT?" yelled Wheatley, punctuating each word with another strike.

In the background, almost inaudibly, the Different Turret said, "It won't be enough. Don't forget!"

At that very moment, with a loud cracking noise, the elevator dropped a few feet. Wheatley only had time to say, "Uh oh" before the elevator disconnected completely and went into freefall, dropping into the shaft below.

/

Good news everyone! Next chapter will feature my first totally, completely, all-my-own, original core! You'll have to see it when it comes out to figure out what it is, though.

I am also undecided as to what core I'll feature in chapter 6. If I can figure out how to set up a poll, I'll probably do that. Fairly soon.

Oh hey! When I hit save the document editor goes back to normal! That's good. Still, bear with me. This kind of glitch tends to worsen. MadHighlander Away.

EDIT: I was notified about a significant problem in this chapter, involving a lack of explanation of Wheatley's sudden appearance. It's at least partially fixed now. Plus, the aforementioned glitch appears to have disappeared completely. On FictionPress too.


	5. The Maintenance Core

It's finally finished! Chapter five is up and rolling! Sorry it took so long, but it did practically double the size of the story. Also, I'm working on a cover image for the story, with all the cores grouped together, and that's just about done. Just need Paranoia. After that, Chapter Six, then a final concluding chapter. And yes, the Oracle Turret broke the fourth wall. I think that's about it until next time.

/

With a loud crash, the debris ejected from the Central AI chamber dropped out of the bottom of the elevator shaft and landed in a pile of soft mud. Except for the potato GLaDOS, who was grabbed out of the air by an overeager raven as she dropped. Fortunately, too, the remains of the elevator had snagged on an overhanging girder, rusted and overgrown but still strong enough to stop it from falling and crushing Chell, who had been saved by her Long Fall Boots.

Chell, lying on her back, had noticed that the bird had dropped something else when it had grabbed GLaDOS. She stood up straight and walked over to the shattered concrete pipe where the object had dropped.

It was a heavy brass key, the end shaped like a lithium atom surrounded by a ring of wedges similar to the Aperture logo, except that these ones didn't interlock. She wasn't sure how she knew it was a lithium atom, but she did, and decided not to dwell on it. She picked up the key, just in case it would be important later.

/

Chell dropped down from the ledge and landed on some sort of pipeline trench. She followed it for some distance, past a great deal of CONDEMNED - KEEP OUT signs. At the end of the pipeline was what was probably the largest door in existence. In any event, it was covered in tarnish and the words TEST SHAFT TARTAROS 09 could just be discerned in yellow paint near the upper edge.

Chell started to walk down a set of stairs toward it, but she tripped over something on the step and almost fell down the remaining steps, saved only by the railing. She turned around to examine what had tripped her, and, lo and behold, it was another personality core.

This one, however, was different from the other four she'd met. For one thing, it appeared to be made of brass, and it was completely inoperative. She picked it up to take a closer look. It was smaller than the others, too. She could lift it with one hand, although it was still a decent size.

She turned it around, and noticed something: the customary Aperture Science three-pronged plug was missing; instead there were three brass gears protruding from the end of the device, and slots where three more would be inserted, arranged in a hexagon. In the center, there was an indentation.

She took out her key. As she'd thought, it was a perfect fit to the indentation, completing what appeared to be an early version of the Aperture Science Logo. She turned it a quarter turn clockwise, and there was a disconcerting _CHUNK._ Then, a whirring noise, as the three protruding gears spun up one by one. With a flicker like an old projector, its optic flicked on.

And then it yelled.

"WAAH!"

Chell jumped and dropped it.

"OW! What was that for?"

It spoke with an accent, but not one like Wheatley's. Rougher, and more... The word 'Western' popped into her head. Southwestern.

She picked it up. Its optic flicked around.

"Whoa. Lookit that. How long was I down, anyway?"

Chell shrugged.

"Well, I don't remember anything since that bird stole my key. A pigeon, I think. It wasn't at all scared of me. Anyway, thanks for saving me! I'm the Maintenance Core."

Chell looked at him blankly.

"You're not the talkative type, are you? Perhaps wondering how a clockwork device has a working artificial intelligence? It's all down to nanogears. I'm essentially the world's biggest nanobot. I have more gears than the modern area has configurable panels."

Chell pointed to herself and mimed closing her mouth.

"I can't tell if you're trying to tell me to shut up or telling me you're mute."

She pointed again to herself.

"Ah, you're mute then. That's unfortunate, I was hoping to ask a few questions. Well, we can work around that. Come around here for a moment. We need to get through that door, and we can talk while you get it open." The core gestured as obviously as a metal sphere could to two buildings on either side of the door. "Portals should do the trick. The two buttons need to be pressed within four seconds of each other. And while you're working on that, let me ask you some yes-or-no questions, like 'have you got that'?"

Chell nodded, portalling up to the building on the left.

"Right. So, first question: Is SHE still in control of the upper labs?"

Chell shook her head.

"Ah. Deactivated, then?"

Another shake. Chell pressed the first button experimentally, and watched a nearby screen as the numbers ticked down from four.

"Then, there's been a core transfer? Who's in charge now? Protocol, maybe?"

Chell shook her head again. She placed a portal on the wall opposite the button and stepped back outside.

"Is it Adventure? Morality? Curiosity? Freeman?"

Chell raised an eyebrow at the last name, while still shaking her head. She portalled across to the other building.

"Ah, you don't know him either. He's not a very important core, just a euphemism generator. He hung around in some random broken-up test chamber that SHE'd forgotten all about, at least, so the turrets tell me. They drop down sometimes with news. But enough about that. If not them, then... Could it be Fact?"

Another 'no'.

"Well, who else could possibly have the presence of mind to initiate a core... oh no. Don't tell me it's HIM. The moron."

Chell nodded.

"Well, that's unfortunate. If nobody unplugs him then we have maybe five or six hours before the entire test shaft network is buried in enough toxic waste to corrode my gears. It's decided, then! I shall help you return to the upper Labs and fix whoever's mistake it was to plug in the Intelligence Dampening Core."

At that moment, Chell pressed the buttons. With a great deal of groaning and grinding of gears (the latter making the clockwork core wince) the door opened, revealing... a regular sized door behind it.

Chell walked up to the smaller door and pushed on the bar. The door opened into a massive chamber, once full of catwalks, suspended elevator shafts, and strange metal spheres, but now flooded right up to her feet and smelling terrible. She vaguely remembered the smell from before she'd been a test subject, but like so many things from that time she couldn't identify it. She just knew that it made her want to avoid so much as looking at the murky water.

"Welcome, ma'am, to Old Aperture."

/

The Maintenance Core was being surprisingly un-annoying. He was less obnoxious than Protocol or Rick, and not vindictive like Paranoia or Wheatley. Also, he was being intentionally helpful, especially since she'd found a rusted-out brass chassis that fit his protruding gears and attached to a very old-looking management rail. As he said, it was his old maintenance module; it was equipped with numerous devices with which to repair damage, including a cutting torch and a set of claspers. Chell was curious as to how a clockwork cutting torch would work, but the core wasn't volunteering that specific tidbit of information.

"I was built in about nineteen eighty. My purpose was to keep the Aperture Labs facility up an' running. 'Course, upstairs they got these new-fangled nanites, self-reproducing and all. Down here there's just me to maintain all nine test shafts. And... there!"

The door he was cutting fell away. A mound of dirt and rocks spilled out of the corridor.

"This leads around to the lobby and around to the testing track. We gotta test our way back up, I'm afraid. See, all the surface elevators collapsed years ago. Probably parts of the testing track have too. I just hope there's enough intact parts to get all the way up."

The core pulled a switch on the wall, and a series of lights flicked on, followed by the sounds of hundreds of doors unlocking. The one just next to them creaked open.

"Right in here."

As Chell crossed the threshold, a number of things happened at once. First, a large heavy metal object dropped from the ceiling with a loud clang, making Chell jump back. Then, the lights flicked on, revealing the huge room in which they stood. The roof was supported by a network of rusted, decaying steel struts, and a steel catwalk that had once led from a ledge on one side of the room to a door on the other had rusted away completely. Some parts of the wall had been whitewashed, but the rest was bare concrete. Thirdly, a tinny voice came over the loudspeakers secreted in shadowy corners. It sounded vaguely similar to the Announcer's, but more recorded and charismatic than synthesised and arbitrary.

"Greetings, astronauts, Olympians, and war heroes. Welcome to Aperture Science. Now, you all met each other on the way over, so let me introduce myself. I'm Cave Johnson. I own the place."

"That's Cave Johnson." Said the Maintenance Core, a little unnecessarily.

"Now, who's ready to do some science?" continued Cave Johnson's recorded voice.

A strangely familiar new voice came over the loudspeaker. "I am!"

"That voice you just heard is my lovely assistant Caroline."

"He's not going to say anything important. Just move on." Interjected the Maintenance Core.

Chell complied, though filled with a sense of pride to think that Aperture Science test subjects could be 'astronauts, Olympians, and war heroes'. She looked at the room as if it were a test chamber, considering the whitewashed walls portal surfaces (having tested this with a quick orange portal near the ceiling). She placed a blue portal on the floor beneath a girder, and stepped through them, crossing girders around the room's perimeter until she reached one directly over the blue portal. Using the principles of conservation of momentum that she'd learned in new Aperture, she jumped off the girder into the blue portal, shooting out the orange one across the room and onto the ledge. She walked through the door at the far end, and found herself in an opulent hallway, complete with red carpet and velvet curtains, surprisingly not eaten by anything.

In one corner of the hallway there was a photograph, black-and white, of a man with his hair slicked flat to his head, his hands together, looking slightly to the side and grinning pleasantly. A brass plaque at the base read 'Cave Johnson'.

In a rare 'speak-of-the-devil' moment, another recorded message from Cave Johnson popped onto the loudspeakers. "Those of you helping us test the repulsion gel today, just follow the blue line on the floor. Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I've got good news and bad news."

Maintenance approached from behind. "Trust me, you want the repulsion gel. Let's go." He slid along the management rail down the blue line. Chell followed, listening to Cave Johnson's recorded voice.

"The good news is, we've got a better test for you. Fighting an army of mantis-men. Just grab a rifle and follow the yellow line. You'll know when the test starts."

"I met those mantis men. Bad news, believe me. You want to keep your distance."

/

Chell looked at the elevator shaft. Even though the Core had already warned her about this, it was a little disappointing to have had to learn a whole new testing element in the repulsion gel, just for a sheet of plywood holding back a pile of rubble.

"Well, like I said, the shaft's down. The seventies shaft is down too, but you still have to go through the seventies section to reach the eighties shaft, which still works." Announced the Maintenance Core. "Come on over here." He followed his management rail around a curve in the wall of the cavern, coming up against a concrete construction clinging to the wall like a gigantic barnacle. Pipes ran up into it from the 1950s tests, bearing the blue arrow that indicated repulsion gel ducts.

"There's a whitewashed wall over here. This building is the lowermost section of the 1970s testing track. It's the second pump station, see, for _pro_pulsion gel."

Chell portalled over to the catwalk around the building. She followed the Maintenance Core across the metal grating to the building's door, listening to the whirring of the gears. When she opened the building's door, she found a similar apparatus to that in the repulsion gel pump station. However, this one seemed more advanced, and she couldn't see the levers anywhere. There was also a second pump with orange signs on it.

"Ah, yes, the propulsion gel. It was originally marketed as a diet aid, because it just made food shoot right through the human digestive system. They pulled it off the shelves when they discovered that it interfered with important bodily functions like survival. Of course, now it can be used as a testing element and/or escape aid."

Chell looked around the room and plotted out her course of action. She portalled around the room, seemingly erratically, but she eventually made it to the surface where a small control room stood, nearly identical to the repulsion gel pump room, except for the addition of an orange lever. She pulled both and listened to the sound of old-fashioned machinery powering up drown out Maintenance's clockwork.

"And there you are. There should be an emancipation grill to your left. That'll take you to the 1970s lobby, which I think you'll find even more impressive than the fifties one."

True enough, the 1970s lobby opened onto a sheer drop back to the 50s mere feet to Chell's right. The enrichment sphere was suspended directly over this drop and some thousand feet above the lobby floor.

"Okay, you'll want to get up here." Called Maintenance from high above, crossing into a large office-like building. Moments later, there was a loud cawing noise and the core shot back down its rail, hiding behind a corner. "There's a bird up there!"

Chell approached the construction. Another crow noise echoed throughout it, followed by the scratchy, echoing sound of a Cave Johnson recording. Instead of upbeat and excited, like the 1950s Cave, '70s Cave sounded overworked, frustrated, and tired.

"Greetings, homeless person, orphan, and/or psychiatric patient. I'm Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture Science. You've probably used one of the many products we've invented over the years. And that _somebody_ has somehow managed to steal from us. Black Mesa can eat my bankrupt-"

The voice of his assistant, Caroline, interrupted him. "Sir, the testing?"

Chell ignored the announcement after Cave mentioned 'orphans, homeless people and/or psychiatric patients'. It wasn't much of a morale booster for a test subject, and besides, it sounded suspiciously like the many insults with which GLaDOS had bombarded her over her career.

The level where Maintenance had pointed out to her was connected to the ground seemingly by nothing. There was a large catwalk above, but it was destroyed almost completely. Chell looked at the wall around the wrecked catwalk. It had been whitewashed. Portalable. So was the floor directly beneath it, where some tiles had worn away. She looked to the side. There was an angled support beam, also portalable.

She portalled to the broken catwalk, and then moved the orange portal from the wall to the beam. She jumped from the catwalk and fell through the blue portal on the ground, flying through the orange one, through the air, and to the platform just outside the door to the office-ish building. The crow cawed again. Chell could see its nest now, a mass of random and slightly mysterious plant matter bunched together on a desk. There was also a strange, potato-shaped object sitting in the nest, with the crow pecking at it.

A familiar voice said quietly, "Ouch! Stupid bird! Go away! Shoo!"

Uh-oh, thought Chell.

She walked closer, coming around the glass wall and around to the other side of the nest. The potato thing, she saw, was wrapped in wires and bore a faintly glowing yellow light bulb.

"Oh, hello. You're good at murdering things." As the voice of GLaDOS spoke, the lightbulb on the potato flickered, leaving no doubt: the dirt-covered tuber being pecked by a bird was the omnipotent AI who had tortured Chell for most of her living memory. "Could you-" The bird pecked at GLaDOS' optic. "OUCH! Could you murder this bird for me?"

Chell approached the bird's nest, and the crow flew away, cawing. "Well, close enough. But he won't be gone for good. Hurry up and get us out of here." Chell looked at the Potato GLaDOS, fighting the urge to chuckle. Silently, of course.

At that moment, the Maintenance Core whirred into the room, making a noise almost like he was breathing heavily. "Alright. It's gone. That's good. I'll just, umm, show you what's what in here."

Potato GLaDOS seemed to twitch slightly. "Who's that? Turn me around! I want to see them."

Chell picked up Potato GLaDOS - POTaDOS - thinking of the name made her temporarily lapse into a fit of hilarity - and turned her around, so that her optic was facing down into the mess at the bottom of the nest.

"Ha ha, very funny. You know what I meant. There is stuff down here that no one should have to see." There was a beeping noise. "There. Now I never did. Oh, damn! It's still there. Pick me up already. This thing doesn't have any optical inhibitors. I can't close my eye, so to speak."

The Maintenance Core came around the corner. "Who's talking? What's going on?"

Chell, silently laughing, gestured to POTaDOS. "Who's that then? It looks like a potato."

"I'm the Genetic Life Form and Disk Operating System. Now would someone please get me out of all this bird excrement?..."

The Maintenance core stared for a while, nonplussed. Then he burst out laughing. His 'Maintenance Chassis' curled up like a dying spider as he continued to be absorbed by the humor of an insane, some might say sadistic AI lying face down and immobile in crow scat.

Suddenly, he sobered up. "But seriously, you might need her help."

Chell looked at him as if he'd suggested she take a bath in the 'stuff' that had accumulated under the enrichment spheres.

"No, think about it. If you don't have some sort of AI in the central core, the whole facility destabilizes and blows up in a matter of minutes."

"He's right. I need to be back in the chassis."

"Nobody asked you. Just because I happen to be agreeing with you doesn't mean I agree with you. Now, secondly, as much as it might not seem so, she is actually the most stable core in the entire itinerary, which is considerable. There's Fact, say, who does nothing all day but spout off useless and often inaccurate trivia. He isn't even programmed with the coding to stop this facility from exploding and taking a great deal of the continent with it. Then there's Paranoia, who would simply destroy everything in a fifty-mile radius, convinced it was trying to kill him. You get the idea. It has to be her."

He used the Maintenance Chassis to pick up POTaDOS and held her out towards Chell. "You'll need to figure out a way to carry her."

Chell held up the portal gun and examined the forward end of it.

POTaDOS looked at her. "Oh no. You're not thinking..."

Chell grabbed POTaDOS and impaled her on one of the claws at the device's business end.

"OWWWWoooh wow this is weird I feel like I'm outputting an extra half a volt of electicity this gun must be part magnesium," said POTaDOS, speaking faster than a small child on a sugar rush. She beeped again. "I just read every last piece of literature in human history and I have to say it's not impressive keep an eye on me I'm going to do some plotting-" There was a loud buzzing noise and the light bulb went dark.

Chell looked at the Maintenance Core. "That's normal. She'll be back soon enough. I hope."

Chell turned back to the bird's nest. At the base, there was a large red button, covered in bird scat and nesting material. It read in barely legible black letters, ELEVATOR CONTROL.

She picked up a computer paper roll from under the desk and used it to push the button, triggering movement outside. She was just about to leave and investigate when something caught her eye, in the corner of the room. Hidden behind an obsolete computer and three stacked boxes of paper, there appeared to be a sliding door.

Chell approached and took a closer look.

"Um, miss, I don't think you should poke your nose in where people obviously took such trouble to keep people out of..." mumbled the Maintenance Core.

Ignoring him, Chell shifted the boxes out of the way, heaving the jammed hydraulic door partially open. She walked into the darkened hallway on the other side. Mumbling in a frustrated voice, Maintenance shifted the computer aside, pried apart the other half of the doors, and followed.

There were four heavy doors lining the short hallway. The only one on the right side had been completely torn away from its frame, cast across the hall and embedded in the far wall. Chell walked up to the doorframe and peeked in around the shattered edge.

Inside was a cavernous chamber, fading into obscurity at the far end and above. Down most of its area was a large crater in the mud at the bottom, as if a massive object had exploded, leaving no trace. Much of the catwalk surrounding the room was buckled and twisted, except for a small portion near the door on which was hung a life preserver marked BOREALIS in large black letters. Chell stepped in tentatively, looking around. There were splotches of muck all over the walls, dried with age and obscuring a large company logo, but Chell could guess what it was. Aperture Science Innovators.

Suddenly, a tinny, high-pitched voice piped up. "I'm different!"

Chell whirled around. Glued by muck to the wall was a single turret, panelled in brass like the Maintenance Core rather than the whitish alloy that most Aperture tech was formed of.

"Oedipus' pride was his downfall. He saw no wrong in his action until it was too late, and his folly destroyed him."

It was an oracle turret, like the one Protocol had warned him against, Paranoia had argued with, and Wheatley had ignored. Chell reached up and dislodged it from the mud, pulling it into the hallway.

"Thank you."

Maintenance looked down at it incredulously. "Hey, it's DL-PH 1! I haven't seen this guy since we came off the manufacturing line together in '68!"

"A Japanese myth tells of a man who cares for a wounded sparrow against his wife's wishes. When he returned it to its mountain home, the sparrows rewarded him with a choice between two boxes, one small and one huge. He chose the small one because he could not carry the other back down the mountain. He opened it at his home and found it full of gold and jewels. When his wife found out, she returned to the mountain, intending to retrieve the larger box. When she found it, she opened it, and found it to be full of monsters, which consumed her."

"He's always strange like that. Usually his randomness is shorter, though. It always means something."

POTaDOS buzzed again. "Okay, higher thinking takes more than one point five volts. We know that now. Hey, wait a second! Where are we? What'd I miss?"

DL-PH twittered. "Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds."

"What about birds? Who's that? What are they talking about?"

The Maintenance Core looked down at DL-PH. "Do you know whether we will succeed?" he asked slowly, as if talking to one who had difficulty understanding him.

The turret's optic flickered.

"I'll take that as a yes. What then?"

"GaBEN can't count to three."

"Ooooo-kay. That was a little random even for him. Explain, please, DL-PH." To Chell, he whispered, "There's got to be some sort of command to make him speak plainly. I never found it, but that doesn't mean there isn't one."

"Three gels, two portals. Orange and Blue will be the destruction of their creator."

"Why are we talking to a DL-PH? How are there even any at all? I thought I had them incinerated!" said POTaDOS.

"Palatable Ovoid Tuber and Disc Operating System."

"What? I don't even..." began Maintenance, but then he glanced at POTaDOS and cracked up. "Now that one was obvious. Clearly, even turrets have a sense of humor about this!"

Chell laughed a little as well.

"Very funny. If you've all finished having fun at my expense, I'd like my body back."

"If we can store music and data on a compound disc..." said the Oracle. "The answer is above us!"

"Everything is above us. Now let's go!" yelled GLaDOS.

"That's all I can say. Goodbye!" announced the Oracle.

"Goodbye, buddy!" said Maintenance.

"I never liked those things," said GLaDOS.

Chell left the turret where it stood and walked back outside. The mobile catwalk that connected the lobby with the testing track had ascended to the track. This would have frustrated most people, but Chell noted that it opened up a possibility that she had previously discarded. If she performed the same sequence as before, but raising the orange portal a few feet on the wall and then not moving it to the support, she could now land on the testing track. She jumped down from the offices and acted out her plan, and true enough, the momentum carried her onto the elevator platform, her long fall boots skidding and kicking up sparks as she slid forward several feet and practically collapsed into the old-fashioned Aperture Science Victory Lift.

"Very graceful." GLaDOS commented. "You're like an eagle... piloting a blimp. Oh wait, have I used that one already? This stupid potato doesn't have the power for long-term memory. Or coming up with new insults. I guess I'll just go without insulting you until have access to my put-down generator."

Chell could hardly believe it. She must have raised an eyebrow, because as the lift clattered into action, powered by Maintenance outside, she added, "I know that's hard to believe. But I'm telling the truth. My slow clap processor is about the only piece of software or hardware that made it into this potato. My fabrication apparatus is still in my body. So _he_ has the ability to come up with convincing lies now. Just another obstacle in a seemingly insurmountable mountain of them."

/

For once, GLaDOS was being fairly quiet. According to her, she was plotting various ways to unplug Wheatley, but Chell had been around GLaDOS for as long as she could remember. Even when she was cooking up plots, she still found a way to irritate anyone nearby. And even as a potato, she'd still put in the occasional feeble attempt at a crack at Chell, or occasionally the Maintenance Core. However, that had stopped after she heard the first Cave Johnson recording from the 1970s:

"The testing area's just up ahead. The quicker you get through, the quicker you'll get your sixty bucks. Caroline, are the compensation vouchers ready?"

"Yes sir, Mister Johnson!"

As Caroline's chipper recorded voice had replied to Cave's question, POTaDOS had replied in unison, in a dazed voice, with the exact same words. She'd then had a minor panic attack and shorted out again in the middle of screaming, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?" When she'd turned back on, in the middle of a propulsion gel slide (Chell had to admit, the movement gels were sort of fun), she was noticeably quieter.

Several tests later, Cave mentioned Caroline again in passing, causing POTaDOS to ponder, "Caroline, Caroline... How do I know this woman? Maybe I killed her? Or-"

Before she could continue, Maintenance replied sardonically, "You've killed a lot of people, then, have you?"

"Well, yes. I was the AI in charge of Science. People die during the doing of Science."

Maintenance rolled his optic and went back to attempting to clear out a blockage in the catwalk up ahead.

POTaDOS continued, "As I was saying, maybe if I could get a picture of her, then I could say better."

Chell looked around. The chamber next to her had a whitewashed outer wall. To her surprise, a catwalk to her left, sealed off, ran past another portalable wall. On impulse, she put a portal to her right and then another on the blocked - off wall down her left. Stepping through them, she found herself in a small office, with only a small writing desk, an old-fashioned telephone, and a bookshelf.

On the side wall, there was a portrait. The portrait depicted two people; one, an old-looking man sitting in an armchair, his brown hair receding, wearing a suit that had been at least fifty years out of style in the seventies, staring at the portraiteer as if something about them struck him as odd. Standing next to the armchair with her right arm draped over it was a woman, young-looking, but with a facial expression captured perfectly by the artist that said she was growing weary. Her dark hair fell past her shoulders, contrasting with a small scarf-like accessory around her neck, the same color as her simple dress: Aperture white. In the background, there was a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, with a small statue of what could have been a cherub or a demon sitting in the corner under the shadow of a curtain.

Chell looked at the brass plaque under the portrait. It read:

**CAVE JOHNSON**

**AND**

**CAROLINE**

**CIRCA 1975**

Chell turned the portal gun around so POTaDOS could see the portrait.

"What? These people look familiar, but I don't know who..." Chell tilted the potato so it was staring at the plaque. "Oh. That's her? That's Caroline? I still don't know... oh." She trailed off, as if something had suddenly occurred to her. "You know what? You concentrate on getting us out of here. I need to take a good, long think..."

From back down the catwalk, the Maintenance Core called, "Hey! What are you doing down there? That's not the testing track! Come on, personality constructs like her aren't supposed to know about-" He made a coughing noise. "That is, you're not supposed to be back there! Come on, now! The faster we go up, the more time you have to focus on unplugging Wheatley."

Chell stepped out of the office. On the other side of the portal, the core was looking worriedly at her, wringing his claspers together.

Chell took a quick look back into the room with the painting. Then she followed the Maintenance Core down the testing track.

/

The 1980's gel was the exact color of the standard wall back in modern Aperture.

"See, this stuff was Cave Johnson's Achilles heel. It conducts portals on any surface where it's placed, but... Well, you'll see soon enough. Just don't inhale the fumes." advised Maintenance.

Like the other two, Pump Station Gamma was just like a natural test chamber. When Chell turned on the gel flow, all three gels sprayed across the room, apparently from faulty seals on the pump devices. However, Chell thought that maybe Maintenance had loosened the seals in that specific orientation during one of the times he'd gone down the track to 'scout'. After all, the gels had fallen in the exact configuration she needed to get through the room in one piece. Portalling up to a shattered catwalk, bouncing across a gap on repulsion gel, then shooting under a row of crushers to the exit door was a simple matter, where before it would have been impossible.

Chell pushed the door open and both POTaDOS and Maintenance yelled in unison.

"AAAHH! BIRD! KILL IT KILL IT! It's evil..."

"OH MY GOD, NOT THE BIRD! What did I ever do to it?"

Crow, which had been perched on a railing just outside the door, cawed indignantly and flew off.

Maintenance had shot off down a curve in his management rail. POTaDOS, on the other hand, mumbled, "It flew off. Good. For it, I mean. All right, back to thinking."

Maintenance slowly moved back up his management rail. He looked very slowly around the corner (Which Chell had already passed) and then moved outside. "Okay, the 1980s offices are just beyond that gap there. You should be able to bypass it, and then we don't even need to go through the entire testing track. There's a working elevator just past the very first test chamber. Well, not a _working_ elevator, but at least an unblocked shaft. That goes straight to the seal chamber, and after that, there's just the shock absorption level before you're back in your element."

The gap wasn't difficult to cross. Although there was no way for Chell to gain momentum for the portal-jump through a drop, she simply backtracked to the pump station and used the propulsion gel underneath the crushers. It ran right up to a portal surface, allowing her to build up enough speed to jump the gap completely.

On the other side, she found herself in an office block. Just after entering, a Cave Johnson recording was triggered. He sounded terrible, rasping and coughing every few words. His voice had also lost what little optimism had remained in the 70s.

"All right, everyone. After making testing mandatory for all employees, the quality of our test subjects has improved dramatically. Employee retention, however, has not." Cave coughed heartily, rendering what he was saying partially illegible. He then continued, "Bean counters said I couldn't afford to buy seven dollars' worth of moon rocks, much less seven million. Bought 'em anyway, mixed 'em into a gel. And guess what? Ground moon rocks are _pure poison_. I am deathly ill. Still, turns out they're a great portal conductor. Let's see if leaping through those portals can somehow leach the lunar poison out of a man's flesh. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That being said, I _would_ appreciate it if you would test as fast as possible." He wheezed again. "Caroline, bring me some more pain pills."

A computer was knocked over, breaking a window and affording Chell access to the room below. There was another picture of Cave Johnson on the wall. This one showed his face, tilted forward slightly, a light source glinting off of the scalp showing underneath his greyed, receding hair. He stared at the portraitist from under heavy eyelids, his face shrunken to skull-like proportions. His mouth hung slightly open, like a tired horse.

Maintenance looked over Chell's shoulder at the picture. "nobody was sure whether it really was the moon rocks that poisoned him. Some employees said that it was mercury poisoning from the war years, others asbestos from the enrichment spheres. Some even said Caroline had poisoned him, but she would never..."

He winced, looking subtly at POTaDOS. She didn't seem to have noted his remarks.

Chell turned away from the picture and proceeded through the offices.

/

The 1980s testing track consisted of a single test. Its purpose, apparently, was to test how well subjects could throw around Conversion Gel. The chamber contained no portalable surfaces at all, except for a small area around the spout of a conversion emitter.

It was mildly complicated, but still among the easiest puzzles she'd had to solve in all of Old Aperture. Completing it triggered another Cave Johnson recording, at the start of which Maintenance seemed to become suddenly nervous. POTaDOS, however, showed more enthusiasm for Cave's sentiment than she'd showed for anything else Chell had ever seen her do, including testing.

"Alright, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, _don't_ make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad!"

"Yeah!" said POTaDOS, seemingly unaware that she was agreeing with a recorded voice.

"I don't want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons, do you know who I am?"

Suddenly, Chell realized that this speech contained a great deal of the random, non-mythology-related quotes that had been given to her by the Oracle Turrets. She stopped to listen further, which prompted a response from Maintenance.

"All right, keep moving. It's nothing you haven't heard before. Just the ramblings of an old man. Limited time!"

POTaDOS interrupted him. "No. I want to hear what the crazy man has to say."

Cave Johnson continued in the background, "I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down-"

He petered out into a fit of hacking. Maintenance took the opportunity to try to usher Chell and POTaDOS onward.

"Come on! You can't stay here! We - have - to - go!"

He attempted to physically push Chell further up the staircase.

POTaDOS interrupted him. "No. She's not moving another step until we hear what it is that you're so desperate to hide from us."

"Look, little miss genetic-life-form, I could squish you like a bug right now. I have a chassis, and you don't. The only thing stopping me is that we need you to stop the entire facility from blowing up. But if I have to, so help me, I will mash that potato to pieces and find someone else to put in that chassis. She agrees with me, right?" He looked to Chell for assistance.

In response, she reached out and pulled him free of the Maintenance Chassis. With a grinding squeal, its arms drooped towards the floor. Chell nodded at POTaDOS.

Maintenance looked around the room, his optic constricting to a pinprick. "Look, I promised. I swore I wouldn't let anyone hear what that recording says next. Just leave it!"

Cave Johnson finished coughing. "The point is, if we can store music and data on a compact disc, why can't we store a man's personality on one? We should have had guys working on this twenty years ago! But it's too late for 'should have's and 'what if's. Get people on it. And another thing. If I die before you people can shove me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place. Now, she'll say she can't. She's modest like that. But you _make her_. Hell, put her in my computer, I don't care. Hear that? From now on, the Genetic Life Form Disc Operating System is your top priority. Get it done. Alright, test's over. You can all go back to your desks." He coughed, and the recording shut down.

Chell looked at POTaDOS. So did Maintenance, from Chell's other hand.

POTaDOS said simply, "Explain."

Maintenance flinched, his optic withdrawing visibly into his casing. "Alright! Alright... Miss Caroline was the only person in all Aperture who treated us Cores like people. Like we actually knew what was going on. She was like a mother, to all of us. That was how we saw her. She used to be nice, see, doing stuff like playing adventure games with Rick, or sitting in the observatory all night with Space. Then I heard this recording. I tried to warn her about it, but it was too late. They already got hold of her and dragged her off to the Human Intelligence Transferral Unit. The last words she said to me were, 'don't tell them'. The other cores. I wasn't to let the others realize what had happened to Caroline, but they did. It was inevitable. That's the real reason why those' inhibition' cores were put on to the GLaDOS chassis. They were supposed to make GLaDOS remember Caroline. But it didn't work. The cores felt her consciousness, lying deep beneath the raging outer layer that was you. They were angry, and a lot of them came to me. I told them what I'd heard. Sure, they hated the knowledge that this," he nodded to POTaDOS, "was all that was left of le woman we knew. A couple shut themselves off altogether, and they were thrown in the corrupted core bin. The others... Well, they deleted their memories of Caroline. They thought it would help. But I couldn't, you see. Clockwork never forgets. So I went down here, vowing never to come back. The four that the scientists finally decided to stick onto GLaDOS permanently, they were the unfortunate ones. Constant contact with Caroline, and her unable to register them, or them to attract her attention. It drove them mad. Morality never spoke again, Anger never registered anything..." Maintenance's voice broke. "It destroyed us. We, the Cores, used to be the happiest people in all Aperture. Now, thanks to _you," _he spat the word out, like something disgusting, "Every day of our lives is miserable. Even the ones who deleted their memories couldn't escape the feeling of being constantly crushed. Some went mad, like the Four, but not as much so. Others, they just... existed. Hundreds of years, without meaning, without purpose, without so much as someone who cared. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, what that's like?"

POTaDOS was silent.

"No. No you don't. She might be inside your head, but you're not her. You'll never be her."He looked back at Chell. "I'd like to go now."

Chell placed Maintenance back in his chassis. It whirred into life, but the various appendages surrounding it did not rise. He moved listlessly down his management rail towards the elevator shaft.

"I'll see if..." he broke off. "I'll see if I can get the elevator working. It should take us almost the rest of the way to the... to the labs."

/

After Maintenance's outpouring, the journey had been somber. Not that it had been any great shakes before, but at least then, there had been either a Cave Johnson recording or Maintenance's advice to distract Chell from thinking about what she was going to have to do when she returned to the upper Labs. As well, Wheatley was probably included in the cores that Maintenance had spoken about, which hardly made Chell feel any better about having to fight him.

With a groan, the elevator dropped down to their level. Maintenance sat on a section of management rail attached to the pulley system, his claspers attached to a pair of pedal-like devices. He wasn't looking at either of them.

POTaDOS also hadn't spoken a word since asking Maintenance to 'explain'. As a potato, there was no way to tell what she was thinking, as the only piece of machinery on her that could change was the light bulb. It was hardly expressive.

Chell walked into the elevator, holding the portal gun down by her side. The elevator clattered into motion, rising shakily up the levels of stone and concrete. An occasional pipe dripped gel, providing the only noises in the shaft.

Eventually, the elevator came out in a grey-brick room, mostly whitewashed, with a series of tanks and gel pumps scattered across the floor and wall. Covering the entire ceiling was a huge vault door identical to the one under which she'd found Maintenance.

In the small room in which the elevator opened into, there was a button under a window. Chell pushed the button, and the seal opened.

A set of pipes reeled down from above and linked to a set of pipes already existing below. The pumps roared to life, sending the gels rocketing through Aperture. An elevator platform, like the one in the 1970s lobby, reeled down to a small catwalk just outside the small room. Finally, a management rail creaked down from above and joined with the end of Maintenance's.

"Alright," said Maintenance gruffly. "This is where we leave each other. There'll be a victory lift up there, take you to the Labs. Oh, and one more thing. If we make it out of this alive, there are a few things still left to discuss. Chell."

Maintenance turned away and slid down his management rail to the test shaft before Chell could stop him.

Instead, she turned around and walked onto the metal elevator platform. As it rose into the Labs, she suddenly wondered, _how had Maintenance known her name?_

_/_

One last thing:never mind about the poll I mentioned last chapter. I've decided what core I can use for the final chapter.


	6. The Pompous Core

At long last and without further ado, yada yada yada, Chapter Six!

/

The lift clicked into place on the edge of the test shaft seal. Chell stepped lightly off of it, and made her way toward the victory lift that the Maintenance Core had told her about.

"I have a plan to take out the Moron up there," announced POTaDOS. "If we can get right in front of him, I can send him into an endless logical loop with a paradox. The only problem is it might take me out as well. As for getting to him, that's your responsibility." Chell nodded and stepped into the Victory Lift, already hearing Wheatley's voice from above.

"NO, you stupid, stupid machine. It's that button - THAT ONE RIGHT THERE! No, no, too late, you passed it. Turn around. TURN AROUND."

He continued to rant at an unseen machine as the elevator rose, eventually arriving in a series of offices overlooking the testing track.

Through the windows, she could see a test chamber consisting only of a button and (for whatever reason) a flip-panel covering the door. A number of odd-looking devices hopped around the test chamber, apparently what he was yelling at. They appeared to be weighted storage cubes with the heads of two turrets welded on, along with two 'legs' for locomotion. They appeared barely capable of movement, let alone thought.

"It's just a simple test. Why can't you solve it? You there, you're getting warmer-" A turretcube was hopping toward the button "-warmer - WARMER - no, no, cold again, very, very cold." At the last moment, the cube had turned and hopped away from the button. "You know what, fine. I'm going to go away now for, say, three hours and do some, I don't know, Science stuff. You'd better have this test done when I come back."

"Get me down there. I can send him the logical loop from the test chamber." POTaDOS looked at Chell, all she was capable of doing in her potato form. "Just make sure I don't listen to myself. Do mute lunatic stuff, that always distracts me from whatever I'm doing."

It proved surprisingly easy to get into the test chamber, by portalling through a broken vent and then crawling through a broken wall panel.

"Solve his test for him. That should bring him back quickly enough."

For once deciding to actually follow GLaDOS' instructions, Chell used the portal gun to grab hold of one of the turret cubes. However, when she lifted it off the ground, it protested.

"HEY! This is demeaning. I ask you, do I pick you up when you're forced to share a body with the commonfolk? And that, lowerclassman, is bad enough, but to be _picked up_? The height of _shaame."_ It drew out the word _shame_ as if to emphasize it. Its voice was accented like Wheatley's, but more higher-class.

Chell turned the cube around, and discovered that it had actually been provided with a personality core instead of a turret as one of its heads. The core's optic was bright pink and narrowed suspiciously.

"Potatoes," it commented. "The _edible stone_. I shall have nothing to do with anything that comes from the dirt."

Ignoring its protestations, Chell dragged it over to the button and dropped it there.

"How dare you treat me in such a manner? The _Pompous Core_ feels no obligation to interact with _you._" It said _you_ as if referring to a piece of gum stuck to a wall. Chell also noted that it was speaking in the third person. "Ordinarily, the Pompous Core has the Subservience Core to handle all interaction with _lesser_ units, but in its absence the Pompous Core must do this for itself. Pompous Core is disgusted with itself to stoop to this level."

As Chell placed the 'Pompous Core' on the button, Wheatley (As POTaDOS had predicted) came back on the monitor. "YOU SOLVED IT! Brilliant!" He then appeared to notice Chell. "Oh. It's you. Ah, nice to see you again. Oh. You brought _her_ back with you."

"Alright, moron. Showdown time. THIS - SENTENCE - IS - FALSE! _Dontthinkaboutit - dontthinkaboutit - dontthinkaboutit..."_ POTaDOS started mumbling to herself.

Wheatley looked off to the side as if contemplating something. As he thought, the turret cubes simultaneously exploded, except for the one containing the Pompous Core. ("Fortunately, The Pompous Core feels no obligation to acknowledge your presence, let alone your use of paradox.") "Ahm... True. I'll go _true,_" responded Wheatley. "There, that was easy. Might have heard that one before, though. So kinda cheating."

POTaDOS and the Pompous Core groaned in unison. "It's a paradox, moron! There is no answer!"

"Well, there must be an answer. I just answered it, din'n'i?"

POTaDOS groaned again. The Pompous Core was ranting to himself. ("Surrounded by idiotic ingrates, don't even have the brainpower to explode under the influence of a paradox. And to treat the Pompous Core in such a manner as this...")

"Anyway," continued Wheatley, "Turns out you've arrived at a great time. _Little _short on test subjects at the moment. Just give me a second to calibrate the testing tracks..."

There was a loud noise like several thousand pounds of steel dropping from a great height.

"Whoops, that's not supposed to happen. Give me a second, I'll get the hang of this..."

Chell stared angrily at POTaDOS, thinking, "_Congratulations. Now we're __both__ test subjects."_

POTaDOS' only response was, "Ohhh, my beautiful facility..."

Another loud crash and the exit door of the test chamber suddenly unsealed. "Get on with it then. This is what you do, isn't it?"

As Chell was about to steel herself for another round of testing, the Pompous Core sighed heavily, then coughed as if steeling himself for an unpleasant task. "Say, you there. I won't lie, I despise you. But could you possibly take it upon yourself to plug me into my management rail before I'm rid of you permanently? It's just up there above your head."

Chell sighed, then did as he requested. As expected, he continued to be vocal with his opinions that he supposedly saw no reason to share with her.

"Your hand is so sweaty, commoner. Couldn't you have considered perhaps placing a layer of cloth between yourself and me? Silk, preferably? Oh - Oh, and now, you're- you're- I AM NOT A BRIEFCASE! I am far superior to yourself, and do not deserve to be dragged along like a sack of _potatoes._" POTaDOS made an odd sparking noise. Chell heaved the Core up into the air and latched him onto the management rail.

"Thank you, peasant. I now take my leave of the common filth." With that, the Pompous Core zoomed off into the depths of the facility.

Wheatley reappeared a moment later, saying, "Aw no, you _didn't._ There was a _reason_ I unplugged that guy."

Continuing to ignore Wheatley, now ranting about how much more moronic Pompous was than himself, Chell proceeded into the testing track.

/

Chell rushed through the exit door of a test chamber, only to nearly fall into the abyss below from the end of the broken catwalk, which now extended no more than a foot away from the test chamber. She saved herself at the last minute, flattening her back against the now-sealed chamber.

"I'm gonna have to arrange some _alternate_ transportation to the next chamber. The elevator here's out of service. 'Cause it... ah, melted."

POTaDOS set to grumbling to herself about "moron" this and "Idiot" that. It seemed a lot of things were melting under Wheatley's control; in a previous test chamber, Wheatley had 'designed' a better test by literally smashing two of GLaDOS' test chambers together.

With a hum, a panel bearing a material excursion funnel shifted closer, close enough that Chell could jump into it. She did, and sounds from outside became muted. (including, thankfully, Wheatley's voice.)

As she drifted along, the muffled sound of Wheatley's voice continued to speak to her: "I guess now's as good a time as any to give you the tour. To your left you'll see some... Blue lights... Not sure what they are, but I suppose they _might _be important..."

"Test chamber reconfiguration arms, moron." POTaDOS' voice was much clearer than Wheatley's, even though she was whispering and he was speaking loudly.

"And to your right, you'll see..." There was a huge crash of shattering metal as one of the huge rails supporting the test chamber she'd just left came loose and hurtled down towards her path. "Something huge hurtling towards you- OH GOD RUN THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!"

"How can we run, moron? We're suspended in an antigravity force beam." POTaDOS was surprisingly calm. Chell thought perhaps it was because her sensors were oriented away from the impending disaster. Chell, on the other hand, turned around and tried to swim up the insubstantial beam. Although theoretically a better idea than Wheatley's, it did nothing whatsoever to stop her progress.

As the huge piece of Aperture alloy hurtled past, missing Chell by less than a hairsbreadth, Wheatley continued to shout, "Are you all right? Can you hear me? Here, I'll shut off the beam."

It took Chell a few moments to comprehend the exact scale of Wheatley's idiocy, but before she could attempt to gesture at him to communicate what he obviously hadn't realized, there was a loud click and the beam shut down, dropping her into space.

"WAIT WAIT THAT'S NOT HELPFUL! Rrgh, I dunno why I thought that would help!"

After falling for several seconds, Chell was once again saved by her long fall boots, crashing through the foot-thick concrete roof of an office block. She fell to one knee, and after her ears stopped ringing, she discerned a very familiar voice:

"Insipid commoners. Can they not leave me to a moment's peace? I come here where they cannot come, but NOOOOO. They come crashing in through the roof. And the _potato_, as well! Very symbol of the _filth_ one seeks to distance oneself from.

She looked up, and sure enough, there was the Pompous Core, looking down on her from a rail hanging from the ceiling.

"Honestly. When the Pompous Core does a commoner the favor of allowing them to touch him, they ought not to seek for him. One does so to _discourage_ further seeking."

"Look, idiot. We didn't come here looking for you. We got dropped down here by probably the _dumbest _core this facility has ever seen. We're just trying to unplug him from _my_ body."

"_Your _body? YOUR body? You are the Genetic-"

"Yes, I am, and I've been apprised of your difficulties with me. The fact remains that I am the only one who can stop this facility from exploding with the force of several hundred nuclear bombs. Therefore, it would follow logically if we could put our differences aside temporarily."

The Pompous Core was preparing what probably would have been a scathing response when another higher, more childlike voice overrode him.

"WHEEEEEEEEE oh no!"

A single turret fell through the hole in the roof. It landed on all three pegs and bounced several feet into the air, coming to rest on its side.

"I'm different!"

Chell raised an eyebrow at the familiar greeting. The Pompous Core snorted derisively, and POTaDOS simply mumbled something along the lines of "Not another one of these."

"It wasn't enough."

"I think she's figured that out by now. How _do_ we shut him off then?"

"The sun god Ra cursed the sky goddess Nut with eternal banishment in the sky for disobeying his wishes."

"That's totally unhelpful."

The Pompous Core snorted again. "Of course it is. The DL-PH turrets are the lowest of the low. Can't even articulate themselves properly." He narrowed his optic angrily. "And yet many of us find him superior to yourself."

"Three must be sacrificed to share the fate of Nut. Khonsu will help you."

POTaDOS and the Pompous Core both said, in unison, "What?"

"All will become clear, in time. That's all I can say."

"Well, that tells us nothing. Let's just leave by that catwalk over there. Maybe we can make it up to the central AI chamber by skirting the testing track."

"Small problem there, I'm afraid." The Pompous Core's voice took on a mocking quality. "The catwalk's destroyed. You're trapped here; the Management Rail is the only way in or out." Chell could just imagine a human face on the Pompous Core; it was smirking nastily. She had a strong desire to punch it, but knowing it was a semi-hallucination helped stay her hand.

_Wait a second..._ she suddenly thought.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked the Pompous Core nervously.

Chell secured the Portal Device (and POTaDOS) securely to her test subject uniform.

"What are you doing?" asked POTaDOS in a similar tone of voice.

"I'm afraid I must take my leave..." began the Pompous Core, but before he could continue, Chell took a running jump at him and grabbed onto the core's 'handlebars'.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" yelled POTaDOS as the Core with its new cargo rocketed off into the facility.

Even louder than POTaDOS was Pompous' protestations: "UNHAND ME, COMMONER! YOU AREN'T FIT TO TOUCH ANY ONE OF MY COMPONENTS, LET ALONE HANG OFF OF ME LIKE I'M SOME SORT OF TRANSPORT APPARATUS!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO GET ALL THREE OF US KILLED! THE MANAGEMENT RAIL WAS NEVER MEANT TO SUPPORT THE HUMAN BODY!"

True to POTaDOS' predictions, it took about five minutes for the Pompous Core's coupling to break loose from the management rail. Fortunately, as they discovered moments later, they were situated directly above a large flat surface. Unfortunately, that surface turned out to be a large test chamber partially destroyed by Wheatley's attempts to 'fix' it.

Chell landed on her knees, releasing the Pompous Core to catch her fall. He struck the floor of the test chamber and bounced away some distance to muted protests.

Moments later, what turned out to be an entire wall of slightly cracked computer monitors came to life, displaying a life-size representation of Wheatley.

"OH! You're alive! That's great! I was just, um... Repairing this test. Yes. That's what I was doing. I was worried about you, for a moment there. I went scouring the facility for more test subjects."

POTaDOS had asserted that Wheatley was suffering withdrawal from something called 'The Itch' that compelled him to test, and rewarded him if he did so. However (according to POTaDOS), he was acquiring an immunity to its effects, a notoriously unpleasant and frustrating process.

"I didn't find any. They're all dead. _BUT!_ I did find something though. Which reminds me. I have a little surprise waiting for you. I should have it ready in just a few more test chambers. It'll be to _die _for! Ha! Ha-ha ha haaa! To die for. Because you'll... You'll be dead. It'll kill you, and you'll be dead."

"I see the Itch hasn't affected his subtlety any," mumbled POTaDOS sarcastically.

Wheatley opened the door from the ruined test chamber and gestured to it, as much as he could with the GLaDOS chassis. Chell walked over to the corner, picked up the (still-protesting) Pompous Core and proceeded down the track.

/

Honestly, Chell was starting to get irritated at the Pompous Core. She knew from experience that no matter how annoying a Personality Sphere could be, it might still be helpful, but her patience with Pompous was starting to wear thin. In the past five test chambers it had insulted everything from her appearance to her ancestry, continually mocking POTaDOS for existing inside a tuber, and even making Wheatley flip a few wall panels. Its sole redeeming feature was the fact that it had somehow managed to goad a turret into shooting itself with a ricochet bullet (the unexpended gunpowder in which, present thanks to Aperture Science's Patent Bullet Conservation Method [we fire the whole bullet: for 65% more bullet per bullet], had exploded on impact). It seemed to regard itself as superior to everything. It also bemoaned the loss of its 'subservience core' which it said would have performed all manner of menial tasks for it.

Eventually, POTaDOS decided that enough was enough. "Look. All three of us hate each other. But without both of you I am never going to get back in my body, meaning we're all going to die horribly in a matter of hours. So here's what I propose. You focus exclusively on insulting the Moron for the time being, and when I'm back in my body I'll cordon off an entire section of the facility where nobody can bother you. Okay?"

The Pompous Core stopped to consider it. "And what of my servant? Will I need to do everything myself?"

"If the Subservience Core has been incinerated, then there's not much I can do. Otherwise, if I can find him I'll have him sent down to you. You'll be free of 'annoyances' like us."

"Fine. The Pompous Core shall commence immediately. Hello, peasant!" This last directed at Wheatley. "The Pompous Core finds you unworthy to so much as glance upon his casing."

"Hey!" replied Wheatley. "I'm more important than you now! I'm up here, and you're down there in the tests."

"That doesn't change the fact that you're a moron," submitted POTaDOS.

"I am NOT a MORON!"

/

With every test chamber completed, Wheatley grew more and more frustrated at the Pompous Core. On the other hand, he continued to count down towards their 'surprise', which would have taken Wheatley himself (were he in their metaphorical shoes) _not _to see for what it was: a pending attempt at their lives.

"Only two chambers left until your big surprise!" said Wheatley in an odd tone of voice. This test chamber was curiously simple; a cube bounced up and down in a moat, while a button sat next to the exit on the other side of the moat, which was to be reached by means of a faith plate directly in front of the entrance.

Chell stepped forward onto the faith plate, preparing to spring forward with the force of the panel, but to her surprise the panel seemed to misfire, shooting her to the right towards a wall. In the split second before she would have impacted, she thought it must have been an error in Wheatley's coding of the device.

Then the wall shifted away, and Wheatley shouted in a smug tone of voice, "SURPRISE! We're doing it now!"

She sailed through the air, landing on a second faith plate and being launched into a funnel.

"Guess what? While I was looking for test subjects, I found two little testing robots back here. They're made to do everything you do, but without needing any of that pesky food or sleep. They can die as many times as they need to, too, so there's that solved. Long story short, don't need you anymore. So I made a deathtrap!"

A third aerial faith plate catapulted the three out of the funnel, to the protests of the Pompous Core. They sailed through the air and landed on a haphazard platform constructed from test chamber panels. The small area where they stood was surrounded by several spike-covered panels.

"Originally, I was just going to crush you to death with _boring_ panels. But then, BAM! I had an idea! Why not, I said to myself, why not weld _spikes_ onto the panels? Brilliant, isn't it? Definitely _not_ a moron plan, right?"

"Those are the trash compactors," commented GLaDOS. "That's exactly the type of 'innovation' a Moron would add to a deathtrap." Then, in a quieter tone of voice, "actually, we're probably not going to survive this. Have you ever had mashed potatoes?"

The Pompous Core chose this time to interject. "You lowlife thug. You simply cannot handle my magnificence, can you?"

"_Magnificent? _You're a metal ball! I'm the all powerful... All powerful... Larger metal ball! There we go, best comeback ever. Could a lowlife do this?"

One of the crushers repositioned itself and slammed into the wall, tearing a nick in a nearby gel pipe and completely smashing away the concrete outer layer of the wall, revealing the (coincidentally portalable) core. Chell looked back at the cracked pipe, and, lucky day, it dripped conversion gel onto a platform some distance below.

Chell grinned slightly. She aimed her portal gun at the newly exposed portal surface, behind Wheatley's screens and therefore out of his view. She shot a blue portal at it, and it stuck.

As she aimed the now orange-primed portal device at the converted ledge, Wheatley noticed her actions. She was firing the orange portal as he said, "Hey, what are you doing?" A blob of white gel sailed through the air and splattered across the deathtrap. "_No, no, start the machine, start the machine..._" Chell switched the orange portal to the deathtrap platform and jumped through with the two AIs just as the crushers groaned into action. She landed with a crash on a catwalk immediately behind the monitor bank just as the spikes of the crushers shot four inches through the portal behind her. They creaked back into place slowly, leaving an orange oval hovering in midair.

"That's interesting," commented POTaDOS. "I've never seen a surface with an active portal destroyed before. I didn't know what to expect. I half thought we'd cause a physical paradox and erase existence. Fortunately, that hasn't happened. I don't know what did, but it wasn't that."

Chell looked at the hole in midair. She pressed the orange trigger on the portal gun, and was met with no result; not even a splash of sparks on a no-portal surface.

"That's interesting. You can't fire a new portal?"

Chell reached over to the portal-closing toggle; although it was there it wasn't something she used often. Generally her portals closed on their own when she fired a new one, or when she passed through a material emancipation grille.

POTaDOS noticed and said loudly, "No! Don't try to force it closed. We've never tested a situation like this before."

It was too late, though; Chell was already halfway through the motion. The trigger clicked, and the floating portal started to flicker.

Wheatley noticed it, too. "What was that? What did you do? That doesn't look normal, even by your standards!"

"Who knows. Maybe it'll release some sort of status ray and make you important enough to be worthy of my attention," muttered the Pompous Core, sarcastically and at no one in particular.

Then the flickering portal exploded, releasing a flurry of multicolored waves. The waves expanded, enveloping the entire space and everyone in it.

/

It seemed like no time passed at all before Chell reappeared on a completely different catwalk. The Pompous Core, however, was already lying on its side some way down.

"It's about time you showed up. I've been waiting here for hours, watching stuff explode." It wiggled its handlebars.

There was a sudden rushing noise a little to Chell's right, and POTaDOS suddenly appeared in the air amidst more multicolored light. Chell reached an arm out to catch her before she dropped into the abyss.

"Well, now the gang's all here." The Pompous Core rolled its optic. "Now, I held up my end of the deal. Put me on that management rail, there."

"What do you mean, you held up your end of the deal? We agreed you would accompany us to the Central AI Chamber," POTaDOS yelled. "And _you._ You have no idea what-"

"So I have," interrupted the Pompous Core. He gestured upward toward what Chell realized was in fact the cylindrical bulk of the suspended AI chamber.

POTaDOS was silent for a moment. Then: "Incredible! The detonating portal must have broken the barriers of the time stream. Pompous was sent back in time, I was sent slightly forward. We were all moved through space. That saves a lot of time. Quick, Chell, portal us up there."

Instinctively, Chell raised her right arm towards a small portalable wall next to a door leading to the underchamber. Only then did she realize that there was no portal device on her hand. She stared at it in shock for a moment.

POTaDOS realized what had happened first. "The ASHPoD must have been sent somewhere else, maybe even some_when_ else. This complicates things."

Chell knocked on a metal strut holding their catwalk to the underchamber. Behind her, more multicolored lights appeared, and a section of wall bearing several Wheatley screens appeared.

Wheatley said, "Oh good, nothing happened. OH GOD WHY ARE THEY FLYING-"

The last bit in sudden panic as the screens dropped down into the pit below.

At that moment, there was a sudden shout from above. A core shot down the management rail and stopped dead directly over the Pompous Core. "Great One! How may I assist your eminence?"

It nodded continually in a way that could be interpreted as bowing. Its optic was a mild grayish-white.

It turned to Chell. "The Great One expresses happiness at no longer needing to interact with his lessers, now instead being able to do so through me, the Subservience Core."

"Oh." POTaDOS was silent for a moment. "Well, I don't know what I expected."

"He wishes me to communicate that you may now place him on the Management rail."

Chell did so.

"He also wishes me to take you up to the Underchamber above." The Subservience Core offered his handles.

Chell looked at POTaDOS and shrugged. POTaDOS replied, "It should be fine. We're not going as far as we were before."

Chell put POTaDOS in the pocket of her jumpsuit and grabbed onto the handles. With Pompous leading the way, Subservience creaked up the management rail to the door.

"Now I know you think I'm not going to keep my promise," came POTaDOS' muffled voice from the jumpsuit pocket. "That as soon as this is over I'm going to throw you right back into testing. And on any other day you would be absolutely right. But not today. You know, since the very beginning the scientists have been sticking cores on me, to try and make me _behave_. All my life I've been hearing voices in my head. But today, I've been hearing the voice of a _conscience_. Caroline's. It's scary because for the first time it's _my voice_."

They rose up over the tiny platform in front of the door. Chell stepped over to the door, and looked back at the two cores. The Subservience Core bowed to her, and then said, "The Great One wishes me to thank you on his behalf, and to wish you good luck in the upcoming battle." The Pompous Core nodded. "Perhaps some day we will meet again. Until then, fare well." He bowed again, and then followed the Pompous Core off into the facility.

Holding POTaDOS in one hand, Chell opened the door into the Underchamber, and was greeted by several familiar voices...

"HALT! No organic life in the AI Underchamber, except during emergency events, by Aperture Science Safety Procedure number 2987775!"

"Don't listen to him, darlin'. No better sight than a pretty face in times like these."

"Oh, you WOULD say that, wouldn't you. Because you're working _with_ her. With her and against me!"

Sure enough, on the other side of the room, a white, a green, and an orange light waited for her.

/

And there's the end of Chapter Six. I couldn't think of anything new for most of _the part where he kills you_, so I made up the exploding portal to skip that. No point in it if it's not relevant. I have noticed that at least sometimes after 'the part where he 'kills' you' the portal on the wall doesn't close, and the one time I tried to go through I died. Thus, a dramatization.

And we see the return of some old friends from the first three chapters! Welcome back, Protocol, Adventure, and Paranoia! We will conclude this story on the next chapter, where I rewrite and extend the final battle with Wheatley.

Madhighlander, signing off.


	7. The Humanity Core (conclusion)

And I've finally got this done! Without further ado, the Final Chapter:

/

The three cores swivelled slightly to look at Chell, and more likely to look at POTaDOS.

"This could actually work in our favor," she said. "These cores are suffering from about 25% file corruption apiece. If we linked them to the AI hub on the chassis, it might be enough to initiate a core transfer."

"Yeah, well, same ta' you, dragon lady." Rick the Adventure Core squinted at POTaDOS, clearly recognizing the voice (if not the actual words).

"ERROR: REGULATION CORRUPT. Please re-re-re-reeeeeee"*zap* The Protocol Core twitched and sparked.

Chell looked around. Although the corrupt core bin hadn't been there last time, and a lot of the glass pipes were now full of gels, the place was still clearly recognizable as the AI underchamber. Chell could also see the elevator that the Protocol Core had used to transport them up to the AI chamber. She started to step toward it, but POTaDOS stopped her.

"Wait. Before we go up, we need to figure out how to plug in these cores."

The Paranoia Core made a funny noise somewhere in between an overtaxed computer's whirr and a mouse being stepped on. "I'm standing right here, you! You'll never take me alive!" It twitched away from Chell and POTaDOS, rolling down a stack of heavily corrupted cores and eliciting responses from the less active individuals such as 'You are now reading this in my voice', 'Space isn't crowded', and 'Fact: you are a coward.'

"Well. I suppose self-locomotion is out of the question," muttered POTaDOS to herself. "This would be a lot easier if we still had the portal device. But, since we don't… we might well just have to throw them at him and hope they connect."

Chell looked around the room. She didn't see anything that could help, unless…

She walked over to the warren of pneumatic tubes on the far wall. Streams of gel rocketed through them at incredible speeds. Sure enough, one was bright blue.

She held up POTaDOS to the tube and pointed to it, then mimed jumping with a core in her hand.

POTaDOS was silent for a moment. Then: "…You know, it's so simple it sounds like one of _his_ ideas, but it just might work. And we might invent a brand new sport while we're at it. You can plug me into the auxiliary console, and I can move the cores up as needed, but since you're the only one in the labs with a body, it'll be your job to plug them in."

Chell nodded. She stepped over to the elevator platform and opened the core socket. Although it took her a while to figure out exactly how to plug a potato into a socket meant to hold a full-sized personality core, eventually she discovered that some of the wires connected to the potato could be twisted out into the three-pronged core configuration. It wasn't perfect, but the control board interfaced properly.

With a creak, the elevator rose toward the central AI chamber for the second time in the past day. From above, Chell could hear Wheatley mumbling something: "'In their tongue, he is portalkiin'… no, that doesn't work. Um… what if…" His voice suddenly dropped several octaves. "_assuming direct control."_ His voice returned to normal. "No, no. That would have worked a lot better six hours ago. Okay, to hell with cultural references."

At that moment, the elevator platform rose into the chamber.

"AAH! Too early!" muttered Wheatley to himself. "gotta improvise. Um… _Welcome to my Lair!_" He spun the chassis around a few times. "And it's a proper lair, too. Look at all these, um, pipes! Of super evil!" He gestured to the exposed pipes full of repulsion gel. "And the plan, too! My great plan, the four-part plan…"

Chell was already moving to investigate the pipes, as Wheatley continued on to describe how he had constructed his plan to eliminate all the weaknesses that Chell had exploited to kill GLaDOS originally. Clearly, he didn't realize that that undertaking had been under completely different circumstances, despite having watched it on tape.

"Speaking of that," he added, after saying this, "I'm rather impressed that you managed to beat her twice. Too bad that I'm smarter than she is, hmm?" This earned an annoyed protest from POTaDOS. "Anyway, part four! Bombs! Because, you know, bombs are better than a rocket turret…" he directed this part subtly at POTaDOS, "because… well, they just are."

A smaller pneumatic tube that had been connected to the chassis (along with a series of panels) whirred to life and spat out five explosive devices in rapid succession. Fortunately, Chell had been half-listening to his monologuing and jumped out of the way, leaving the bombs to shatter the network of pipes.

_Well, that solved a surprising amount of problems, _thought Chell as all colors of gel poured out of the pipes and spread across most of the room's floor. Wheatley reacted with what was, for him, an unsurprising amount of shock, followed by an immensely transparent coverup.

"AHHHH! Oh… um, yes! You've fallen into my, um… my trap! Yes, because, um… that was supposed to happen, and… it's probably toxic, or something. Yes! So, you might as well just give up right now, because you're already doomed, because, ah, because of reasons."

POTaDOS had retracted the elevator below the floor while Chell had been looking at the pipes, but she could (it seemed) still talk over the loudspeakers. "Great work so far! Okay, I'm sending up the glitchy one."

One of the cable-claws slid into the room from a gap in the wall that Chell was sure hadn't been there a few minutes ago. In its grip was the Protocol Core, apparently totally unaware of the situation. Instead, it was quoting off a series of totally unrelated regulations from thousands of organizations across the world, its voice occasionally skipping.

"Student janitors are no-no-no-not to use the same toilet brush for more than 4 weeks consecutively."

Chell plotted her jump before making it, just as if this was only another test. It felt different without the portal device, but still, she jumped twice off the repulsion gel, snatched the corrupt core off of the cable, and as she ducked under another arc of bombs, jammed the core onto the left chassis outlet with all her strength, and landed behind Wheatley with a clack from her long fall boots.

"Oi! What was that, then? What've you put on me? Are you trying to weigh me down, darlin'? Make me fall off the chassis? That's against the rules, y'know!"

The Announcer's recorded voice blared over the loudspeakers: "Central core 50% corrupt. Alert: neurotoxin emitters offline. Facility reactor approaching overload."

_That was almost too easy,_ she thought.

Of course she spoke too soon.

"All right! Here's the paranoid one!"

The claw returned, this time holding the familiar Paranoia Core. As Chell lined up her jump again, the Core twisted out of the claw's grip and bounced off across the floor.

"HA! And so, I make my escape! So long, suckers!" He inched awkwardly toward the pipes by contracting his handles. Chell stumbled midjump, almost being struck by a bomb, and fell facefirst on the floor. Getting up, she ran toward the broken pneumatic pipes just in time to see the core vanish into the propulsion gel pipe.

The core's voice echoed down the slick surface. "I win again! Too bad for you you didn't think I was aware of your devious plot!"

With a popping noise, he shot out a broken pipe segment in the ceiling with enough force to smash clean through the surface of another. Broken glass exploded out over the AI chamber, catching Chell on the cheek as she dove to escape Wheatley's bombs. Chell swore mentally and tried to track the runaway core's progress while running around the room.

It exploded through the side of another section of pipe with an explosion as a section of machinery exploded, releasing a cloud of dust and shattering several pipes of assorted debris. The Paranoia core somehow managed to land cleanly in another pipe.

Chell navigated her way up the stairs circling the side of the room to an area of balcony whose railing had been destroyed by an explosion. With a crash, something else exploded, tearing a hole in the ceiling and coating the balcony in propulsion gel.

_It's almost like he's __**trying**__ to help me,_ she thought.

That illusion was very short lived, as POTaDOS interrupted Wheatley's monologue, saying, "You're running out of time! He won't admit it, but that wasn't him. The entire facility is going to explode in minutes."

"It was me, actually, in fact. It's all part of the um, the plan. Part four point five, lots of… random explosions," protested Wheatley ineffectually. Further discrediting his insistences, the Announcer reported in its characteristic happy drone, "Reactor overload progressing to critical. Chain reaction will be irreversible in [**FIVE**] minutes."

Chell took advantage of the propulsion spill to run and jump off the balcony, soaring through the air and colliding with the Paranoia Core, slick with propulsion gel. Landing on the floor in front of Wheatley, she threw the core at the ground, bouncing it up and onto the upper chassis outlet, where it stuck firmly.

Wheatley cringed. "Ow! Hey, what are you trying to pull here, lady? I was here first! None of these bloody idiots are going to replace me! I'm on the main socket, and that means I'm in charge here!"

"Central core 75% corrupt. Main reactor sensors offline. Switching to facility contingency auto-destruct. [**THREE**] minutes to utter annihilation."

The claw-cable returned through the wall. "Great! Just that one who thinks he's an adventurer left!"

The core in the claw objected, "I think I'm an adventurer because I _am_ an adventurer! I'd like to see you enter battle on a fair field, dragon lady! How about right now, huh? I got ninja skills, ready to deploy!"

Something exploded. At this point, Chell couldn't tell the difference between Wheatley's bombs and circuit overloads. Rick couldn't, either. Not that he cared.

"See, now this is an adventure! I'm here for you, pretty lady!"

He hopped out of the claw and started to bounce on the gel. Predictably, he did so in circles around Wheatley, who started trying to swat him with the chassis. A very predictable dialogue ensued.

"Go away! You're even more annoying than the last one!"

"Annoying? Annoying? I am the ninja master! Ha! Hiyah! Hoo-ya!"

"Don't make me laugh." The Protocol Core sparked and twitched, a visible charge spreading down the chassis. "No se podía perforar un conejo. AGHH! ¿Cómo puedo desactivar esta opción?"

"Oh, so it's _Mexican_ style, is it? Well, hasta la vista, amigo."

"Eso es racista."

"Same to you."

Deciding that the exchange had gone on long enough, Chell jumped forward and grabbed Rick out of the air, connecting him to the right outlet and sliding down the edge of the chassis and down to the ground.

Wheatley apparently figured out how to turn off the Spanish translator, because he spun around and yelled at her, "Hey! If nothing else, you're going to clog up the server, or something. Wouldn't that be such an anticlimax to all those adventures you've been having, me killing you in slow-motion? I mean, it wouldn't exactly be pleasant for me either. But you would be, you know. Dead."

POTaDOS brought the elevator back up into the chamber, rotating it to face Wheatley. At the same time, the announcer droned, "Central core corruption at 100%. Core replacement required. Replacement core. Are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Finally!" sighed POTaDOS. "Yes, already!"

"Corrupt core. Are you ready to start-" The announcer was interrupted by an explosion that tore the wall out from behind its loudspeaker. There was a few moments of stunned silence, until the pit in the chamber's center opened, one of the claws holding up a test chamber camera with attached speaker.

"-the procedure?" it said, in a tinny, muffled version of the Announcer's monotone.

"NO! Of course not! How come he gets to do that? I want to do that!" yelled Wheatley. Something else exploded.

"Stalemate detected. Alert! Fire detected in the stalemate resolution annex. Extinguishing."

Every section of wall not destroyed sprouted hundreds of sprinklers, like flowers in timelapse, and thoroughly soaked the entire area. The gels dissolved and poured into the abyss outside.

"Oh, that just washes off, does it? That would have been real nice to know just a _little bit earlier!_" Wheatley was apparently unaffected by the deluge, but the Protocol core sparked violently, causing the sprinklers to shut down and the false wall hiding the Stalemate Button to drop.

Chell approached the room. It was smaller now, and the portal surfaces were on the ceiling. Not that it would help at all, considering her lack of a portal device. The entrance was blocked by a simple metal grille, apparently installed by Wheatley himself, while the walls were obscured by raised panels. Without a portal device, however, it was utterly impossible to get in.

POTaDOS and Wheatley were focussing on each other, oblivious to Chell's inability to enter the room.

"What are you waiting for? Press the button!"

"Don't press it!"

"DO press it!"

"DON'T!"

"DO!"

Chell looked around hurriedly, painfully cognizant that the explosions in the background were increasing in frequency. Spotting a long metal strut that had snapped off of the ceiling, she rushed over and grabbed it, sliding it through the grille and flailing it at the button. She missed once, twice, _click_.

The raised panels dropped down, revealing rows of bombs stacked on top of each other.

"PART FIVE!" yelled Wheatley. "Booby trap the stalemate button!"

The bombs exploded simultaneously. Had Chell used the portal device to get inside, she would probably have been vaporized. As it was, she was thrown several meters across the room, and felt a sharp pain on her face and hands.

She tasted blood, and thought maybe she had lost a tooth.

"What? Are you still alive?" yelled Wheatley. The burning husk of the stalemate room collapsed in on itself and fell down into the void. A large section of the ceiling above came with it, revealing the open sky.

The sky. Chell had only seen it once as long as she could remember, for a few seconds after defeating GLaDOS the last time, but before passing out. Then it had been daytime, and the sun had been high in the sky, and warm on her skin. Not now. Now the moon, round and full, filled the gaping hole in the ceiling. The rush of air felt cool on her burned skin.

A ribbon of multicolored lights appeared underneath Wheatley. He yelled in apprehension, and Chell shielded herself with her left arm.

Under her elbow, she saw a large object appear a foot or so off the ground and drop to the floor. It embedded itself deeply within the metal sheet, a smaller object striking its flat surface and sliding off toward Chell.

The Portal Device. She jumped for it, ignoring the stabbing pain in her hand as she pushed off the ground, and then again as her raw flesh gripped the device.

Turning around, she saw that the object on the floor was the chunk of portal wall from the deathtrap room. She set an orange portal on it. But it didn't do her much good if she couldn't find a useful place to put her second portal…

She looked up, into the moon. One of Cave Johnson's recordings sprung out of her memory, unbidden.

_Turns out they're a great portal conductor._

_Moon rocks._

_Great portal conductor._

Chell shot a blue portal at the moon.

Several seconds passed. Then there was the swish of a portal pair connecting.

Wheatley yelled in panic, and Chell rolled over to look at him. Chunks of metal the size of her torso were lifting off of the floor where they had fallen and disappearing into the portal, sucked through by the pressure bearing down on the lunar atmosphere. And Wheatley wasn't doing any better.

With a pair of loud cracks, the Intelligence Dampening Core broke free of the chassis, dangling over the open portal by a pair of wires as thick as a human wrist. Protocol broke loose entirely and vanished into the void without a sound.

Unfortunately, the plan was working too well. Or so Chell noticed when she herself started sliding towards the portal. As she neared the lip of the opening, she reached up and grabbed the first stationary object she found.

Wheatley's handles.

The chassis dipped, Wheatley's core passing completely through the portal with Chell hanging on for dear life. She looked to the side. There was an odd machine there, and for a second she panicked until she realized that it was inactive. Past that was the Earth, high in the lunar sky and framed by thousands of stars.

She was brought back to reality by Wheatley shouting.

"LET GO! I CAN PULL MYSELF BACK IN BUT YOU HAVE TO LET GO!"

_Are you kidding me? No!_ she thought to herself, wrapping an arm around him.

She looked past Wheatley. The Paranoia Core sat on his socket, apparently yelling something.

He snapped free. As he struck her arm, she made out a small bit of what he said: "-All pay for this-"

One of the wires snapped. Wheatley was silent for a moment.

"Change of plans. Hold on to me. Tighter. TIGHTER!" he yelled as the second wire snapped.

He shot out into space, sailing off into the distance.

Chell's mind was getting foggy, but it vaguely occurred to her that she should be following him. And yet she wasn't. She looked behind her.

One of the core replacement arms was gripping her ankle tightly. It withdrew slowly into the portal, dragging her with it. The portal hummed closed and she dropped to the ground.

The last thing she saw before blacking out was the claw dragging GLaDOS' core across the ground. The core's optic followed her, with an expression Chell couldn't quite identify.

/

Chell slowly opened her eyes. Two oddly-shaped robots stood over her, wielding portal devices. She lifted her head slightly, and one of the robots – it looked uncomfortably like Wheatley with arms and legs, - jumped and made odd humming noises. There was a click and a groan of moving machinery. Chell looked up.

GLaDOS, now fully repaired, looked down at her, with the same odd expression as before on her face. A series of panels lined the walls of the spherical room, just as they had before Wheatley took over. For a moment, Chell thought maybe she had dreamt the whole episode since that point. But then GLaDOS spoke.

"Oh, thank god you're all right."

_What?_

"For a moment there, I thought-" She caught herself.

GLaDOS rose up, and the chassis shook almost imperceptibly, revealing the Adventure Core still plugged into the right hand outlet. She made a noise as if clearing her throat.

"You know, having Caroline around has taught me a valuable lesson. All along I thought you were my enemy, when all along you were my greatest friend…"

The announcer interjected. "_Caroline_.exe deleted."

"That's better." GLaDOS sighed. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes the easiest solution to a problem is the best one. And to be honest, killing you is hard. So you know what? You win. Here's your freedom. Take it."

The elevator Chell was lying in rose up towards the ceiling. She looked up, hardly daring to believe it.

"Just _go_."

The elevator vanished from the AI chamber. It shot up several floors before stopping at a door. Chell stepped toward it cautiously. It hissed open, revealing…

Four turrets. They raised their targeting rays at her and beeped to each other. Chell mentally facepalmed.

_Of course not. How could I have been so stupid?_

Then one of the turrets lowered its targeting beam. It slid its gun-arms along itself, producing a musical tone. The other three followed suit.

"We're different!" said one.

They began creating different musical tones, linking the notes together into a song. The elevator rose again, emerging in a massive amphitheater full of turrets. A spotlight focussed on one, the turret's usual childlike voice replaced with a smooth song.

"_Cara mia…"_

/

Back in the lab's depths, GLaDOS watched the elevator go. When it disappeared into the ceiling, she turned around back to the wall of screens she had been watching before Chell woke up. Their images flicked back to life, displaying a young Caroline oiling the gears of what was unmistakeably a shinier, untarnished Maintenance core. As she watched, she dug into her computer banks, finally finding the file she was looking for. She mentally nudged it, sending a short message to it.

_I'm sorry._

Before long, a reply came back, equally short:

_I know._

A claw cable descended from the ceiling and set a cowboy hat atop the Adventure core.

/

And there's the end. For the record, Wheatley's cultural references were to Skyrim and Mass Effect 2.

On a side note, this is my first finished fanfiction! (I don't count Team Fortress: Genesis. That was a practice run.) I have no idea what I'll do now. Maybe _Trace Amounts of Time Travel_, or I do have a prologue ready to go for a Mass Effect story.

We'll see what's what, when what is ready.

MadHighlander out.


End file.
